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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






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'Is the Bible 
Trustworthy? 



FIVE PAPERS BY 



THE REV. WM. P. SWARTZ, 



Pastor of Central Presbyterian Church, 



WILMINGTON, DEL. 






Porter & Co., Booksellers and Stationers, 
409 Market Street, Wilmington, Del. 



Is the Bible 
Trustworthy? 



FIVE PAPERS BY / 

THE REV. WM. P. SWARTZ, 

Pastor of Central Presbyterian Church, 
WILMINGTON, DEL. 



Porter & Co., Booksellers and Stationers, 
409 Market Street, Wilmington, Del. 



&-*». 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year [892, by Rev. Wm. 
P. Swartz, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



PREFACE. 

These papers were originally addresses prepared in response to 
the interest of the writer's people in the current discussion of the 
Trustworthiness of the Bible. They were received with such favor 
and so many requests were made for their publication, that they 
were put in print as delivered. These separate parts are now gath- 
ered under one cover for the convenience of those wishing the 
papers in a form more easily handled and preserved. No attempt 
has been made to disguise the evidences of their first character; 
nor is there given any list of the works consulted, but an acknow- 
ledgment of obligation to many authors other than those named in 
the body of the work is freely made. 

That the} T are adapted to the wants of many busy people, who 
ask what is the effect of all the discussion and of modern discover- 
ies upon the accuracy and trustworthiness of the Bible, a number 
have freely testified. It is a matter of gratitude that God has 
already used them to win some wavering souls to unquestioning 
faith. That He may still further bless these words in commanding 
and confirming faith in His everlasting Word is the earnest prayer 
of J W. P. S. 

Wilmington, Dei., March, t8q2. 



CONTENTS. 



I. Is the Bible Trustworthy ? The question 
stated and the Test of Science ? 

II. Is the Bible Trustworthy when tested by 
the latest results of historical research ? 

III. Is the Bible Trustworthy when tested by 
the failure or the fulfillment of its prophecy ? 

IV. Is the Bible Trustworthy as tested by 
Human Experience ? 

V. The effect of Modern Criticism upon the 
Trustworthiness of the Bible. 



Is the Bible Trustworthy? 



BY THE REV. WILLIAM P. SWARTZ. 



PHRT I. 



"thy word is truth." John xvii:i7. 



THE QUESTION STATED. 
Such is Christ's declaration concern- 
ing God's word. But is it true ? is the 
question of many in our day. "One 
period," says a German writer, "has 
contended for his sepulchre, another 
for his body and blood, the present 
period contends for his word." And it 
is true, that every period of the church's 
history has been determined as much by 
the foes which it has confronted, as by its 
own internal development. The vitality 
of Christianity, its power to resist attack, 
triumphing the more it is opposed, are 
strong evidence of its divine origin, and 
its no less divine preservation. First 
came the age of persecutions, when be- 
lievers endured the power of angry 
mobs, or the more terrible persecutions 
of the empire, always attesting, how- 
ever, the presence of a living faith. 
Then it was that the church was made 
glorious in the triumphant martyrdom 
of a Fortuna, and a Blandina, of a Poly- 
carp, of Justin, the Martyr, of Paeon, 
of Liberianus, and untold others, who 
cast the fear of death from them as the 
sunshine hurls the darkness from its 
path. Then followed a period of in- 
ternal strife, when heresy after heresy 
threatened to vitiate both the truth and 
the faith which the church had received 
from the fathers. And the names of 
Athanasius and of Augustine, defenders 
of the revealed truth of God's word, 
became conspicuous. Then followed 
the age of corruption, when the purity 
of the faith was covered with a veneer- 
ing of superstition and error, until the 
mighty Luther, with heroic zeal, ham- 
mered off this overlaying corruption as 
he nailed the 95 theses to the door of 



the electoral church at Wittenberg. The 
Reformation began almost at the same 
time as the revival of learning. The 
light of a pure gospel and of an unchain- 
ed Bible had hardly begun to shine with 
uninterrupted ray, when many, proud of 
their recent acquisitions of knowledge, 
began to hurl the weapons of their in- 
tellects at this system, whose keystone 
is faith. Then followed in quick suc- 
cession the assaults of the atheists, 
which were met by William Paley in 
works which are still classical; and a 
little later the deists hurled themselves 
against the light of this word, but the 
answer of Bishop Butler was itself un- 
answerable. During all these centuries 
the disciples of Christ have contended 
for some truth which they have received 
from their Divine Master. But now 
they are called to defend the citadel 
itself, to maintain the integrity and au- 
thority of God's word. Never was 
the contest more hotly, or more skill- 
fully waged by our foes without; never 
have more aid and comfort been given 
to these foes of the Bible, thaa is now 
afforded by the weakness and shifting of 
some of its professed friends. W T e need 
not be much disturbed by the higher 
criticism, for its results, while dogmatic 
enough to deceive the wavering, 
can have only the authority of a 
critic's opinion. There is little or no 
historical evidence for its positions, nor 
any fact of nature which can give its 
results permanency. In its spirit of 
deeper, reverent, yet independent, study 
of the word of God there is probably 
more of help than of hurt. 

There is, however, presented to us a 
more serious challenge. It is the chal- 
lenge of students who claim to have 



found in the Bible errors which must 
have been in the original manuscripts; 
errors, which it must be acknowledged 
are due to the ignorance of the writers, 
and which science, or right history, or 
personal experience has undeniably 
shown, are not in harmony with the 
facts. This is the contest which we 
must now meet. It is a battle for the 
authority of the Word of God. 

It is not denied by the Christian or the 
critic, that many variations have found 
their way into the different manuscripts 
during the centuries; a word or a figure 
incorrect, sometimes a marginal note, 
which an annotator may have written, 
has crept into the text of subsequent 
copies. But apart from such errors, not 
one of which by the way effects in the 
slightest degree any of the essential or 
saving truths, the Christian church has 
taken the Word of God as it has come 
down through the ages, and has called 
it, as did Christ, "the truth," infallible, 
"the only infallible rule of faith and 
conduct." 

There can be no doubt, that the Scrip- 
tures and Christ claim absolute trust- 
worthiness for the Old Testament writ- 
ings, which are to-day the particular 
object of attack. To use the words of 
Canon Liddon: "Our Lord set the seal 
of his infallible sanction upon the whole 
of the Old Testament. He found the 
Hebrew Canon as we have it to-day, and 
he treated it as an authority which was 
above discussion. Nay more, he went 
out of his way, if we may reverently 
speak thus, to sanction not a few por- 
tions which modern skepticism rejects." 
As an admonition against turning back, 
he charges his disciples to "remember 
Lot's wife." (Luke xvii, 32.) Asa sign 
of his divinity in the resurrection from 
the dead, he appeals to the facts of 
Jonah's release on the third day from 
the whale. As a warning to the incor- 
rigible, he holds up God's sudden over- 
throw of the antediluvian world by the 
flood. 

The boast of Christianity is that it is 
historical. It is a religion founded on 
facts. If now these facts are not trust- 
worthy, neither is the religion which 
depends upon them. "If Christ could be 
mistaken on a matter of such strictly 
religious importance as the value of the 
sacred literature of his countrymen, can 
he be safely trusted about anything else?" 
If this book tell us falsely of earthly 
things, how can it be depended upon 
when it tells us of heavenly things? When 
Dr. Duff overthrew the claims to divine 



origin and authority of the sacred books 
of the Hindoos, so that now there is 
probably not an educated Hindoo who as- 
signs them more than a human origin in 
a venerable antiquity, he found it suf- 
ficient to show that they were filled with 
errors concerning nature, and the things 
of this life, and then to retort, "Can 
these books tell you aright of the eter- 
nal and the spiritual, when they are so 
manifestly ignorant of the temporal and 
the natural ?" If now it could be demon- 
strated that the Bible, has undeniably 
fallen into errors of wilfulness or ignor- 
ance concerning any of its statements 
of history, or science, or human experi- 
ence, then we too should be compelled 
to acknowledge, as have the Hindoos, 
that writers who are so unreliable and 
ignorant in dealing with the facts of 
nature are not competent to teach us 
the more difficult and subtle things 
about nature's God. 

The purpose of this and of several 
succeeding papers will be to consider 
this question, Is the Bible trustworthy 
when tested by the clearly ascertained 
facts of science, or history, or human 
experience ? In other words — Is God's 
word the truth ? 

We will at this time confine our in- 
quiry to the question, 

IS THE BIBLE TRUSTWORTHY WHEN 
TESTED BY THE FACTS OF SCIENCE ? 

For clearly the test must be between 
the facts of nature and the facts of 
revelation, for it would be manifestly 
unfair to ask, that the Bible be accepted, 
or rejected, as the theories which men 
have invented about the facts of nature 
should, or should not harmonize with the 
interpretations which men have put 
revelation. The authors of these theories 
and interpretations are men, and very 
fallible ; but the Author of the facts of 
nature and of revelation is the infallible 
God. And the books must harmonize, if 
he has written them both. 

Neither must we expect to find in the 
Bible all the facts of nature, nor a com- 
plete system of any science, for it was 
given as a revelation not of the physical, 
but of the moral and spiritual world. 
Its language also ought not to be the 
scientific terminology of the schools, 
for the book is intended for all mankind, 
of whom the majority are unscientific 
and unlettered. But where the purpose, 
or the necessity of its writers has led 
them to speak of any of the facts of 
I nature, it is fair to demand, as the price 



of our acceptance of Bible truth, if not 
scientific systems or scientific termi- 
nology, certainly strict accuracy in the 
fact. 

If in one instance the Bible has been 
betrayed into the acceptance of false 
theories, then the whole book of that 
writer is discountenanced. 

In two of our sciences the Bible has 
been led to speak with some fullness: 
first, of the formation and history of the 
earth, and, second, of the heavens. To 
these two, therefore, the geology and the 
astronomy of the Bible, our attention 
must be confined. 

The attack of GEOLOGY upon the 
record of the word has been confined 
practically to the account of the creation 
and of the flood. 

i. Of the creation. 

Geology has succeeded in putting a 
much larger meaning into the word day, 
as used in the first chapter of Genesis, 
than Christians had at tone time been 
willing to allow it, but not more than the 
word rightly bears. For in Hebrew, as 
in English, the word has the indefinite 
meaning of a period of time, often more 
or less than a strict day of twenty-four 
hours. A man does a day's work, is it 
an eight hour, or a ten hour, or a twelve 
hour day ? Then how frequently do men 
exclaim, "I have never seen the like in 
my day!" meaning very clearly, in 
their lifetime. Now, the Bible uses the 
word "day" in just this indefinite sense, 
to mean some epoch, or unit of time, 
without clearly determining whether it 
is a day, or a year, or a century, or a 
thousand years. Job xiv, 6, speaking 
of the life of a man, says, "Turn from 
him, that he may rest, till he shall ac- 
accomplish, as a hireling, his day." In 
Gen. ii, 4, the whole period of creation 
is spoken of as one day. In Deut. xxxi, 
17, Zech. iv, 10, John viii, 6, 2 Pet. iii, 8, 
the same indefinite length of "day" is 
indicated. 

Let us now take the days of the sacred 
record in comparison with the epochs of 
Geology, and we have a most marvelous 
correspondence. 

ACCORDING TO ACCORDING TO THE 
GEOLOGY. BIBLE. 

First Period: First Day: 
A fiery mist. Light. 

Second Period: Second Day: 
Rains and accu- Firmament, or 

mulation of sed- the separation 

iment. of the waters. 



Third Period: 
U p h ea ving of 
continents, and 
the appearance 
of marine plants. 

Fourth Period; 
The dispei sion 
of clouds, ren- 
dering sun and 
moon and stars 
visible. Plant 
growth. 

Fifth Period: 
Aquatic animals 
and birds. 



Third Day: 

Appearance of 
dry land, and 
creation of 
plants. 

Fourth Day: 

Appearance of 
sun and moon 
and stars to 
measure the 
days and sea- 
sons. 

Fifth Day: 

Aquatic animals 
and birds. 



Sixth Period: Sixth Day: 

Mammals and Mammals and 

man. man. 

This harmony becomes all the more re- 
markable, when we remember the times 
in Which the Bible was written. That it 
should have escaped the crude errors of 
the age, is conceivable only upon the 
recognition of the divine inspiration and 
revelation which Moses enjoyed. The 
old Egyptians, in all whose learning 
Moses was educated, thought that the 
world was hatched out of an immense 
egg. The Phoenicians, the East Indians, 
the Chinese and the Fins all preserve 
this tradition. According to one of the 
Babylonian traditions, creation is born 
of the marriage of Baal and Tanith. In 
view of these facts we can the better 
appreciate the decided language of Prof. 
Dana, the eminent geologist, when he 
says: "The record in the Bible is, there- 
fore, profoundly philosophical in the 
scheme of creation which it presents. 
It is both true and divine. It is a declara- 
tion of authorship, of both creation and 
the Bible, on the first page of the sacred 
volume." "The first thought which 
strikes the scientific reader, (of the 
Mosaic account of creation), is the evi- 
dent divinity, not merely in the first 
verse of the record, and the successive 
fiats, but in the while order of creation. 
There is so much that the most recent 
readings of science have for the first 
time explained, that the idea of man as 
the author becomes utterly incompre- 
hensible. By proving the record true 
science pronounces it divine ; for who 
could have correctly narrated the secrets 
of eternity but God himself ?" 

The second point in which Geology 
has attacked the Sacred Records is in 
the account of the flood. 

Huxley has boldly challenged the 
truthfulness of this record. He says of 
the flood, "it cannot have been uni- 



versal, for geology knows nothing of it." 
"It cannot have been local for that is a 
physical impossibility," and such a flood 
as could have been local would not sat- 
isfy the Bible record. "The story is of 
Babylonian origin," "yet Christ evident- 
ly believed it." 

Of course Christ evidently believed, 
that there was a flood. The traditions 
of every land record a flood. The 
Greeks, the Babylonians, the North 
American Indians, the Santals of India, 
the Hindus, the Polynesians, in fact, it 
is nearly impossible to find a people, 
whose traditions do not describe a flood, 
many features of which are similar to 
the account in Genesis. How did this 
tradition spread so widely, if there were 
not a flood over the inhabited parts of 
the earth destroying all men from its 
face ? But what is tradition worth in 
the balances against such a positive 
geological statement ? If the testi- 
mony of . geology were clear, or a 
unit upon the subject, we should al- 
low it more weight. All that can be 
claimed by Mr. Huxley is, that he does 
not know of any geological evidence of a 
general flood. But what Mr. Huxley 
has never found, others of equal ability 
have clearly found. Sir William Daw- 
son, the scientist, in writing on this sub- 
ject, refers with approval to the work of 
Howarth on "The Mammoth and the 
Flood," as follows: "He collects largely 
not only the diluvial traditions of so 
many races and countries, but also an 
immense mass of palaeontological evi- 
dence, and then says, that in his judg- 
ment the whole points "to a wide-spread 
calamity, involving a flood on a large 
scale. I do not see how the historian, 
the archaeologist, or the palaeontologist 
can avoid making this conclusion in 
future a prime factor in their discussions, 
and I venture to think that before long 
it will be accepted as unanswerable." 

Prof. Lyell, himself a geologist of 
great note, says: "In 1806 a French 
geologist enumerated no less than eighty 
theories all of which were hostile to the 
Scriptures," but, adds the Professor, 
"not one of those theories is held to- 
day." The best results of Geology 
therefore, do not impair, but rather en- 
hance the trustworthiness of the Bible. 

We turn now to ask what is the result 
of astronomy's testimony concerning 
the Bible ? 

Much has been made out of the fact, 
that the Bible speaks of the sun's rising 
and setting, of his running a race 
through the heavens, of the blue ex- 



panse of the "firmament," as though 
the Bible thought that the arch above 
us was of solid crystal. This, it is true, 
is not scientific language, but the 
acceptance of the common forms of 
speech in which the multitudes refer to 
things as they appear. For language 
had taken on these forms before the 
revelation was made. Now, is it neces- 
sary to accuse the inspirer of the Bible 
of ignorance, because he chose to use 
such expressions ? The Nautical Al- 
manac issued by our government from 
the National Observatory at Washing- 
ton, one of the foremost publications of 
the scientific world, is still in this year 
of our Lord, giving the times for the 
rising and the setting of the sun. The 
sky is still spoken of as a "firmament," 
or "the starry dome of night," or "the 
curtain of the heavens." Yet no one 
understands, that the users of these com- 
mon phrases are ignorant of the fact, 
that there is no dome, and no curtain, 
and that the skies are not solid spheres 
in which the stars are embedded. No> 
astronomer, wanting to be called at sun- 
set, would say to his servant, "John, 
call me when the earth in her rotation 
upon her axis brings the meridian of 
our observatory to the entrance of the 
shadow caused by the obstruction of the 
intervening terrestial mass between us 
and the light of the sun." He would 
say as a sensible man, "John, call me at 
sunset." Nothing more or less than 
this direct sensible statement of its facts 
in the language of every day use can 
rightly be demanded of the Bible. 

The fact upon which I ask you to pon- 
der is this, that ancient literature is fill- 
ed with the crudest, and most erroneous 
ideas concerning astronomical subjects, 
but that, though the Bible writers must 
have been familiar with them, they are 
themselves never guilty of one of these 
errors. What power, or wisdom except 
God's could have given them this ex- 
emption ? It is the most marvelous 
proof of their infallibility. 

Anaximenes thought that the earth 
was shaped like a table, and Leucippus 
that it was like a drum. Pindar believed 
that it was supported upon adamantine 
columns; the Romans and Greeks be- 
lieved that it rested on the shoulders of 
Atlas; while in India, some say, that it 
is supported by a snake, but others de- 
clare that the earth rests upon the back 
of a tortoise, and the tortoise stands 
upon the back of an elephant, and that 
the elephant's legs reach all the way 
down: when the elephant moves the 



earth quakes. Plato, Pythagoras, and 
Aristotle thought that the earth was a liv- 
ing creature ; and even Augustine said, 
that there were no inhabitants upon the 
other side. Philalaus claimed, that the 
earth would eventually be destroyed by 
the waters of the moon being dashed 
upon it through a whirlpool in the 
moon's atmosphere. But the moon has, 
as we now know, neither water nor 
atmosphere. 

Concerning the moon the ideas are 
no less laughable. Pharnaces thought 
that it was a mixture of fire and air. j 
The Stoics claimed that the moon was | 
larger than the earth, Anaximander | 
making it nineteen times larger. Others 
claimed that it is a circle of fire like the ; 
sun. We now know that the moon 
is a dead mass much smaller than the 
earth, and that all its light is reflected 
from the sun. The Shasters, sacred 
books of the Hindus, declared that the 
moon is 50,000' times further away than 
the sun. The truth is that the sun is 
more than 90,000,000 of miles from the 
earth, but the moon is only about 
250,000 miles distant. 

Of the sun errors equally grotesque 
were held. Philalaus said, that it was 
merely a beautiful crystal reflecting the 
light of the earth. Epicurus taught 
that it was "as large as it appears, or 
somewhat larger or smaller." Anaxa- 
goras however asserted that it was "as 
large as the whole Peloponesus," [that 
is about as large as the State of New 
Jersey]. Anaximander was daring 
enough, however, to maintain that the 
sun was twenty-eight times larger than 
the whole earth. But modern science 
has found the sun to be 1,400,000 times 
larger than the earth. 

Diogenes said, that the stars were 
"pumice stones;" but Philalaus thought 
that they were crystals purer than dia- 
monds. Plato made the astonishing 
discovery that they were "fire mixed 
with glue," though the famous Anaxi- 
menes had so long taught that the stars 
are polished nails driven in the firma- 
ment of heaven to fasten it on. Of 
these stars the ancients thought that 
there were 1,000; the Bible alone saying 
that they are without number. The 
most recent researches of science find 
them practically innumerable. Every 
time a more powerful glass is turned 



toward the skies, new stars are revealed. 
Comets were the souls of good men 
on their way to heaven. The Milky 
Way was to them an old and unused 
pathway of the sun, or, as others 
thought, the road upon which the gods 
passed back and forth from heaven to 
earth. While the utmost reach of 
stellar space is such that an anvil, so 
Hesiod says, could fall from the stars to 
the earth in nine days, and from the 
earth to the abyss in nine days more. 

Yet not one of all these common 
errors finds a place in the Bible. Where 
it speaks it speaks truth. In its earliest 
book, Job, are astronomical statements 
which though contrary to the accepted 
thought of the day, are in most strik- 
ing harmony with recent knowledge. 
Instead of resting the earth on the backs 
of men, or of elephants, or of snakes, 
as ' all the heathen seemed to do, 
Job says, xxvi: 7, "He stretcheth out 
the north over the empty place, and 
hangeth the earth upon nothing," just 
where modern astronomy has discovered 
that it is hung. But one of the most 
remarkable discoveries of astronomy is 
foreshadowed in Job xxxviii 31, " Canst 
! thou bind the sweet influences of Plei- 
! ades, or loose the bands of Orion?" 
It is now discovered that the whole solar 
system is slowly passing away from the 
constellation of Orion, and is being 
drawn toward the Pleiades ; around 
which all the systems of the heavens 
seem to move, in a mighty orbit, as 
though sweeping in the cycles of eternity 
around the throne of God. 

It would not do to close without ac- 
knowledging my indebtedness, all 
through the latter part of this paper, to 
that admirable work of Dr. Townsend, 
of the University of Boston, " The Bible 
and Other Ancient Literature in the 
Nineteenth Century," and by refering 
all who may care to trace the effect of 
our knowledge of Zoology, Physiology, 
Botany upon the trustworthiness of the 
Bible, to its pages. 

In uttering the conculsions of my own 
studies on this subject, I cannot find 
fitter words than those of the renowned, 
Sir John Herschel, England's great 
astronomer. "All human discoveries 
seem to be male only for the purpose of 
confirming more and more strongly the 
truths contained in the Holy Scriptures." 



Is the Bible Trustworthy When Tested by the 
Best Results of Historical Research ? 



BY THE REV. WILLIAM P. SWARTZ. 



RTSRT II. 



"THY WORD IS TRUE FROM THE BEGINNING." Ps. CXlx:i6o. 



It would be very interesting to 
take up and consider in successive 
discourses the confirmations of the 
Bible, which arise from the re- 
searches in Egypt, and Babylonia, 
and Assyria, and Charchemish; 
indeed, to each we might profitably 
devote a morning, but the press of 
other subjects will not allow us to 
go so thoroughly. "The research 
of the spade," as Schliemann called 
it, gives a testimony to the minute 
accuracy of the Word of the Book, 
that must silence every unbeliever 
who studies these results carefully. 
Within the present century the de- 
velopment of historical criticism 
has succeeded in separating between 
the myth and the true in ancient 
Roman and Greek history. Until 
in comparatively recent years the 
myth of Romulus and Remus was 
accepted as history of equal credit 
with the accounts of the Punic 
wars; and the legends of Perseus, 
and the wanderings of the Odyssey 
were accepted as no less true than 
the records of Herodotus. But 
under the more careful scrutiny to 
which modern historians have put 
their facts, much of the old history 



has rightly been relegated to the 
realm of myth, just as the errors of 
former ages have been superseded 
by the advances of science. 

It was neither possible nor desir- 
able , that the Bible should be exempt 
from this searching criticism. If it 
is God's word, as we claim, no ad- 
vance of true knowledge can in any 
way discredit it. If at any point 
the Bible is vulnerable to the 
criticism of human scholarship, 
it would most naturally be in 
the field of history, for the 
Bible is very largely a history of 
God's dealings with the world in 
the preparation of redemption. 
Whatever pleas may have been 
raised to defend the Bible for a lack 
of scientific language, — because it 
is not a text book of science, can- 
not be advanced herewith propriety, 
because the Bible is a history. 
Rather, it is God's revelation of 
himself in human history. As Dr. 
Ecob says, "every event is a sylla- 
ble breaking from the lips of God. 
Every epoch in affairs is a com- 
pleted sentence of his thought, and 
the great stream of human history 
is God's endless revelation of him- 



self." The purpose of the Bible 
is to take the events of history, and 
to show man their meaning. But if 
the facts given in the Bible are not 
historically true, they have no 
meaning; the revelation of God in 
false history is a false revelation. 
The same necessity that demanded 
the giving of the revelation of this 
book, requires its preservation. But 
it could not be preserved, except as 
its facts were transmitted from age 
to age without essential error. If 
the Bible is to be an infallible rule 
of faith and practice, it must also 
be true history. And it is ! 

The history of the Bible has been 
fiercely assailed, but it has not in 
any point, of which I am aware, 
been shown untrustworthy. The 
mythical theory of Strauss, aided 
as it was b}' the efforts of Bauer 
and his school to assign late dates 
for the composition of the Gospels 
from 130 A. D. to 200 A. D., is now 
ancient history; though not much 
over half a century old, it is no 
longer possessed of any credit or 
influence among scholars. In more 
recent days the trustworthiness of 
the Penteteuch has been attacked; 
and as Bauer sought to serve the 
infidelity of Strauss and Renan by 
his critical theory of the gospels, 
so certain among us seek to under- 
mine the historical accuracy and 
trustworthiness of the Old Testa- 
ment books by assigning to them 
later dates than those which have 
heretofore been unquestioningly ac- 
cepted. It is just at this opportune 
time that God is revealing out 
of the earth, in exhumed records of 
the remote past, such a substantia- 
tion of His word, as is fast driving 
the historical critic to acknowledge 
with wonder the strict accuracy of 
the Bible. Dr. Wilson, in speaking 
of the results of archaeological 
studies in Egypt, says, what might 



truthfully be said of the recent re- 
searches in every field, "The 
whole monumental wonders and 
antiquities of the land seem to have 
been preserved, as if for the ex- 
press purpose of evincing the au- 
thenticity and illustrating the nar- 
ratives of the Bible; every single 
allusion of which, either to the cir- 
cumstances of the people or the 
country, is seen to have the minutest 
consistency with the truth, — so 
strikingly so, indeed, as to have 
attracted the attention of every 
Egyptian antiquary." 

The testimony of Sir William 
Dawson, the Canadian scientist, is' 
to the same effect. In a late ad- 
dress he said: "There can be no 
doubt that within recent years a 
large amount of work on the part 
of surveyors, excavators and arch- 
aeologists has been throwing light 
on the older Hebrew books and re- 
markably vindicating their histor- 
ical truth. The Ordnance Survey 
of Sinai has confirmed signally the 
topographical accuracy of the books 
of Exodus and Numbers, though 
its force is scarcely yet appreciated 
by linguistic scholars. The late 
Professor Palmer has extended the 
evidence to the North, and I have 
myself ascertained the geological 
and topographical truth of the nar- 
rative relating to Egypt. My own 
studies of the region of the Dead 
Sea have enabled me to vindicate 
the accuracy of the narrative of 
the destruction of the cities of the 
plain, and recent discoveries in 
Chaldea have unearthed corrobora- 
tive evidence of the battle of Abra- 
ham with the Euphratean kings. 
The excavations at Tanis, Tap- 
hanes, Rameses and Pithom, the 
Tel el Amama tablets, and multi- 
tudes of other Egyptian facts, have 
all tended in the same direction. 
The excavation at L,achish, the 



ruins of the ancient Minean cities 
of South Arabia, the monument of 
the Hittites and the extension of 
the evidence of literary work and 
education to times long antecedent 
to Moses in Egypt, in Arabia, in 
Syria and in Chaldea all tend in 
the same direction." 

But these quotations must suffice 
to establish the fact, that the most 
recent and the most exact results 
of history are only confirmatory of 
the truth of the sacred record. 

It will be our duty, in as far as 
the time permits, to notice those 
points in which the accuracy of the 
Bible had been denied, and upon 
which there has been found some 
record from the monuments. In 
every instance, of which I am 
aware, these records have substan- 
tiated the one book, which shall 
never lack enemies or friends. 

Of the discrepancies which it is 
alleged exist between the different 
parts of the Bible, it is not neces- 
sary for me now to speak. They 
are all explainable; and the diffi- 
cult}' has generallj T arisen from the 
ignorance of the reader. Take one 
as a sample of all the rest. In 
John xix:i4, "and it was 'the prep- 
aration of the passover and about 
the sixth hour, and he [Pilate] said 
unto the Jews, behold your King." 
But in Markxv:25, "Anditwasthe 
third hour and they crucified him." 
If he was still in the judgment hall 
at the sixth hour-, how could he 
have been crucified in the third ? 
Even Strauss admits, that Mark 
used the Jewish reckoning, and that 
John used the Roman. 

THE BABYLONIAN TESTIMONY. 

One of the Bible stories very 
often discredited is that of the tower 
of Babel, and the confusion of 
tongues. But there have been 
found in the excavations at Baby- 
lon cuneiform inscriptions evidently 



referring to this very incident. 
"We can read in the wedge-shaped 
letters of a 'mound' destroyed in a 
night, while Ami 'confounded great 
and small on the mound' and made 
'strange their counsels.' " (Bible 
Verified p. 236.) 

In 2 Kings xx:2, and in Isaiah 
xxxixn, it is said, that Merodach 
Baladan, King of Babylon, sent 
letters and a present to Hezekiah 
when he was sick. But Babylon 
was in the time of Hezekiah an 
Assyrian province, and there was 
no other mention in history of any 
such king in Babylon. It was 
therefore, with great confidence, 
that the critics of the Bible said, 
there was no such character as this 
Merodach Baladan. But more re- 
cently there has been found in the 
Chronicle of Eusebius a fragment 
of Berosus, whose history of Baby- 
lon was written over 2,000 years 
ago, in which we are informed, that 
Merodach Baladan was an usurper, 
who reigned independently for 
about six months, and was then 
over-thrown by Sennacherib. Thus 
again are the critics wrong, and the 
"word is true from the beginning." 

There is found also a striking 
confirmation of God's judgment 
upon Nebuchadnezzar. "They 
shall drive thee from among men, 
and thy dwelling shall be with the 
beasts of the field: they shall make 
thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven 
times shall pass over thee until thou 
know that the most High ruleth in 
the kingdom of men, and giveth it 
to whomsoever he will." Dan. 
iv, 42. 

An inscription now in the East 
India House at London, according 
to Col. Rawlinson, describes the 
works of Nebuchadnezzar at Bab- 
ylon and Bersippa. In the midst 
of the list occurs a remarkable pas- 
sage, which the decipherer could 



not but regard as the official version 
of the incident of which Daniel 
gives us the fuller and more intelli- 
gent account. For breaking off 
abruptly in the account of the 
architectural wonders of Babylon, it 
denounces the astrologers, saying, 
"The king's heart was hardened 
against them. He would grant no 
benefactions for religious purposes. 
He intermitted the worship of Mero- 
dach, and put an end to the sacri- 
fices of victims. He labored under 
the effects of enchantment. ' ' Then 
follows much more which is indis- 
tinct, but a little further on the 
narrative of the architectural won- 
ders of Babylon is resumed. So 
must we exclaim with the Psalmist, 
"Thy word is true from the begin- 
ning." 

Again: profane historians relate 
that the capture of Babylon took 
place under Nabonnedus, not under 
Belshazzaras Daniel says. Skeptics 
used to enlarge upon this, as they 
did upon other statements, which 
they regarded as erroneous. For the 
oldest secular historian of Babylon 
says, that the last king of Babylon 
was not in the city when it was 
taken by the Persians; but that he 
was afterward taken prisoner at 
Bersippa, and was treated with the 
greatest consideration by Cyrus. 
Here then was direct and irrecon- 
cilable contradiction. 

But a few years ago there was 
found near Babylon, what is known 
as the Nabonnedus Cylinder on 
which are these words: "As for me, 
Nabonnedus, the King of Babylon, 
preserve me from sinning against 
thy great divinity, and grant me 
the gift of a life of long days; and 
plant in the heart of Beishazzar, 
the eldest son, the offspring of my 
heart, reverence for thy great divin- 
ity, and never may he incline to 
sin; with fullness of life may he be 



satisfied. ' ' So we see that this last 
king known to profane history had 
a son Beishazzar; and Sir Henry 
Rawlinson has found at Ur of the 
Chaldees, near Babylon, records, 
which establish beyond a doubt the 
fact that Nabonnedus had associated 
Beishazzar with himself upon the 
throne. Of Nabonnedus it was 
true as the ancient Berosus had 
said; but it was also true as Daniel 
relates of the capture of Babylon, 
and the death of Beishazzar. Here 
too is the explanation of a fact 
which had long puzzled students. 
In the narrative in Daniel, Bel- 
shazzer makes Daniel the third in 
the government, not the second, as 
one would have supposed, but the 
third ; and that because there were 
already two on the throne. So 
while there is no mention of Na- 
bonnedus in the sacred narrative, a 
single numeral, which might have 
been changed by some puzzled tran- 
scriber of the book in all these 
thousands of years, has been pre- 
served to displa}', as it does now, 
the absolute accuracy of the Bible. 
Yes, God's "word is true from the 
beginning." 

Uninspired historians have spoken 
of Cyrus as a Persian monotheist, 
and, therefoie, much more dis- 
posed to acknowledge the one God 
of the Jews, and to honor him in 
returning the captivity of Judah. 
It required some strange explana- 
tion on the part of commentators of 
Isaiah xxi, 2; "Go up, O El am; 
besiege, O Media." It was gener- 
ally said, that Cyrus was a Persian, 
and that Elam was in the height of 
the Persian empire one of the prov- 
inces, and that by the figure Synech- 
doche, the part was put for the 
whole. But now we know from the 
clay tablets dug out cf the earth, 
that Cyrus was an Elamite, and a 
polytheist. So that the word of 



God is true without any explana- 
tion. Yes it is "true from the be- 
ginning." 

THE ASSYRIAN TESTIMONY. 

In the excavations at Ninevah a 
whole library has been dug from 
the earth. The royal collection of 
Assurbanipal ,the Sardanaplus of the 
Greeks, after being buried for 2,500 
years has been brought to the light. 
It consists principally of bricks, 
upon which the records w r ere written 
when they were soft clay. They 
were then burned to almost the 
hardness of stone. There is already 
much more of this Assyrian litera- 
ture than of the whole of the 
Old Testament. It would be 
interesting to recount the labors, 
by which this, a new language in 
our da)-, was deciphered, and its 
treasures put at the service of God. 
But we must forbear. The cor- 
roborations of the Bible to be de- 
rived from these writings of the 
remote past, are no less remarkable 
than in the case of the Babylonian 
remains. I can mention this morn- 
ing but two of them. 

Isaiah says that "Sargon, King 
of Syria," captured "Ashdod." 
For 2,500 years this was the only 
record of such a king. More 
than once has profane history, 
therefore, said, that the Bible was 
mistaken here. But now there has 
been found a cylinder bearing the 
name of this very king, and describ- 
ing the expedition of which Isaiah 
speaks. Sargon 's existence also 
clears up difficulties in the tenth 
and eleventh chapters of Isaiah, 
which did not apply to any known 
conqueror. 

On these cylinders we read also 
of Sennecherib and Hezekiah. 
There is one other contribution 
against the critics, and to the re- 
lief of the Christian, which these 
records afford and which I cannot 



forbear mentioning this morning. 
We are told in the Bible, thatEzar- 
haddon, king of Assyria, "took 
Mannassah in chains and bound 
him in fetters;" and there is added 
in Chronicles, and "carried him to 
Babylon." But Ninevah was the 
Assyrian capital, not Babylon, 
which had been overthrown and de- 
spoiled. It was as if some one 
should read in the far future, that 
Queen Victoria took the Prince of 
India captive, and carried him to 
Berlin. Just such seemed the Bible's 
mistake. But these monuments 
tell us that Ezar-haddon repaired 
Babylon and made it one of his 
chief seats of government. So, 
"Thy word, O God, is true from 
the beginning." 

THE TESTIMONY CONCERNING 

THE HITTITES. 
Among the Canaanites, whose 
possessions were taken by the Is- 
raelites, when they occupied Ca- 
naan, are named the Hittites. It was 
these people who had sold a grave 
to Abraham. The Bible represent- 
ed them a great people. In 2 Kings 
the Syrians are represented as say- 
ing, "IyO, the king of Israel hath 
hired against us the kings of the 
Hittites, and the kings of the 
Egyptians." But Prof. F. W. 
Newman, brother of the Cardinal, 
in his history of the Hebrew Mon- 
archy published in 1857, claimed 
that this was "unhistorical," be- 
cause the Hittites were too insig- 
nificant a tribe to be mentioned a- 
long with the powerful Egyptians. 
But now their capital, Carchemish, 
has opened its bosom, and is show- 
ing that these Hittites were one of 
the powerful people of antiquity. 
They contested the supremacy of 
the East, not only with Assyria, 
but also with Egypt. They main- 
tained a long struggle with the lat- 
ter country, when it was in its prime 



under Rameses the Great; and were 
after it able to treat with Egypt on 
equal terms. The treaty of peace 
entered into between the "great 
king of Keeta," i. e. of the Hit- 
tites, and the "great prince of 
Egypt," is preserved to this day on 
the walls of the temple at Karnak 
in Egypt. 

No sooner is this difficulty set- 
tled, than another arises. Dr. 
Cheyne in his articles in the last 
edition of the Encyclopedia Brit- 
annica vol. xii: p. 25 says of the 
Hittites, ' 'They were a warlike and 
powerful nation, whose centre lay 
in the far north of Syria, * * The 
Hittites are repeatedly mentioned 
among the tribes which inhabited 
Canaan before the Israelites, but 
the lists of these pre-Israelitish pop- 
ulations cannot be taben as strictly 
historical documents. * * If then," 
he continues, "we employ the fam- 
iliar name, Hittite, * * let it be 
understood that by this term we 
do not indicate one of the Canaan - 
itish people conquered by the Is- 
raelites, but an extra Palestinian 
race capable of holding its own even 
against Egypt and Assyria." At 
the first the Bible could not be true 
for it represented these Hittites as 
great enough to be associated with 
the Egyptians. Now so reputable 
and scholarly a work as the Ency- 
clopedia Britannica errs in suppos- 
ing the Hittites so great, that the 
Israelitish hordes could not have 
conquered any of their possessions 
in Palestine, where it is acknowl- 
edged that they probably had com- 
munities. Once again the mon- 
uments come to the support of the 
word of God, and show that the 
Hittites waged war for eighty years 
with Seti I. and Rameses, with 
whom Moses was contemporary, 
until peace was concluded because 
both nations were so exhausted 



that they could not fight longer. In 
this state they were not able to de- 
fend themselves against the Israel- 
ites, who took their Palestinian 
possessions. That the armies of 
the conquest did not conquer, and 
overthrow the Hittite empire itself, 
is clearly implied in the scriptures 
from the fact that it is mentioned 
hundreds of years after the conquest 
as one of the great powers of Asia, 
of whose kings even Syria, the 
scourge, was afraid. I shall look 
for a later edition of the Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica to modify the state- 
ments of this article, "For God's 
word is true from the beginning." 

But why continue ? These in- 
stances could be multiplied many 
fold. We could show how one 
seeming difficulty after another has 
been cleared up, as the reliable tes- 
timony, which God has saved to 
overwhelm the skepticism, and to 
silence the caviling of these later 
days, is gathered from the ruins 
of ages. The very stones are cry- 
ing out to the support of the Mas- 
ter's word. As we have seen by 
the few instances examined this 
morning, time after time have ad- 
verse criticism and a too confident 
unbelief been compelled to acknowl- 
edge the truth of the Bible and 
their own mistake. I do not know 
of a single instance were a state- 
ment of Bible history has been un- 
deniably disproved. 

Negative criticism, the mythical 
theor}^, and the learning of the 
Tuebingen school, skepticism and 
unbelief have hurled themselves 
repeatedly against this book, which 
Gladstone has called the "Impreg- 
nable Rock of Sacred Scripture." 
They have not broken it, but have 
been broken by it. To use the 
words of Prof. Sayce, the eminent 
Oxford orientalist, "The same 
spirit of skepticism, which had re- 



jected the early legends of Greece 
and Rome, had laid its hands also 
on the Old Testament, and had de- 
termined that the sacred histories 
themselves were but a collection of 
myths and fables. But suddenly as 
with the wand of a magician, the 
ancient Eastern world has been 
awakened to life by the spade of 
the explorer and the patient skill of 
the decipherer, and we now find 
ourselves in the presence of monu- 
ments which bear the names or re- 
count the deeds of the heroes of 
Scripture." (Quoted in the Bible 
Verified p. 247) "Though three 



thousand years have passed away," 
says another writer, "the very 
scenes of the Old Testament are 
here faithfully reproduced, while, 
as if to confound the folly of modern 
skepticism, the famous capitals, 
which were the seats of mighty 
kings, 'when Egypt with Assyria, 
strove in wealth and luxury,' have 
been summoned from their grave." 
(Rev. Henry Tullidge, in Triumphs 
of the Bible, p. 409.) The stones 
have cried out, and what do they 



say 



'Thy word is truth, 



O 



God, "Tlry word is true from the 
beginning." 



Is blje Bitle Tru^bworbljy as b^sbed ty bl>e fail= 
iirp or blje fulfoiln^nb °f it? propt^cy ? 



BY THE REV. WILLIAM P. SWARTZ. 



••• F>KRX III. 



We have also a more sure word 
of prophecy ; whereunto 3^e do well 
to take heed. 

For the prophecy came not in 
old time by the will of man: but 
holy men of God spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost. 
2 Peter 1:19, 21. 

In Deut. the Bible lays down for 
itself and for all prophecy this test, 
that, if the thing which has been 
prophesied does not come to pass in 
its time, then that prophecy is not 
of the Lord. Let us read the words: 
"When a prophet speaketh in the 
name of the Lord, if the thing fol- 
low not, nor come to pass, that is 
the thing which the Lord hath not 
spoken, but the prophet hath spo- 
ken it presumptuously." Deut. 
18: 22. If now we apply this prin- 
ciple to the sacred writings of 
Christendom, we must say of the 
Bible, if its prophecies do not come 
to pass in their time, then this book 
is not the Word of God ; but if, on 
the other hand, its prophecies are 
fulfilled in the most marvellous and 
complete manner, then does this 
fulfillment become God's seal of au- 
thority set on the whole book. 

The prophecies of the Bible are 
so numerous and so daring in their 



details, that if the author of these 
books be not God, infinite in wis- 
dom, to whom the things which 
are to be are even as the things which 
have been, certain and known, but 
if men were their authors, then the 
failures of their predictions must 
long ago have brought confusion 
upon all who trusted in them. 

"For God frustrateth the tokens 
of liars and maketh diviners mad; 
he turneth wise men backward and 
maketh their knowledge foolish ; 
but he confirmeth the word of His 
servants, and performeth the coun- 
sels of his messengers." Isaiah, 
44:25,26. If any where the armour 
of this word can be pierced , and its 
trustworthiness disproved, it would 
be in the failure of its prophecy. 
For, to use the words of Bishop 
Foster, its prophecy "opens in the 
first chapter of the Bible, and like 
a stream deepening and widening 
as it flows, swells into a vast river 
as it descends the centuries, until 
at the end of four thousand years 
it utters its closing and most sub- 
lime sentence in the last chapter of 
the Apocalypse. In its course it 
sweeps through all time, now 
adumbrating the fate of nations 
and world-renowned cities and em- 



pires, anon sketching the destiny 
of men and systems, and having for 
its chief and greatest function to 
trace the rise and spread of the di- 
vine kingdom on earth, — the com- 
ing of the Son of God, the wonders 
of his mission, his matchless char- 
acter and matchless deeds, the strug- 
gles and dversities of its course in 
its beginnings, until, gathering re- 
sistless strength, it finally sweeps 
away all opposing systems of su- 
perstition and wrong, ascends the 
throne of the world and inaugurates 
an era of universal peace and hap- 
piness among men; then, rising 
with a bolder flight, it depicts the 
closing scene of earth's history, the 
final coming of the Son of Man, 
the transformation of the physical 
word itself, and the magnificent 
dawn of the everlasting age. One 
only needs to be caught up in the 
roll of its mighty events to feel that 
he stands amid the unutterable sub- 
limities of an infinite plan, that he 
is following the march of events to 
a consummation worthy of the 
majesty of God. We occupy a 
stand point in the middle of the 
amazing scheme. Behind us in the 
six thousand years of the world's 
history is a cycle of completed 
events, filling the exact measure of 
the chart up to date ; around us are 
the proofs of its complete fulfillment 
up till now, the unfulfilled comes to 
meet us." (The Supernatural Book, 
page 74.) 

All prophecy is not yet fulfilled; 
some of it, we are told by learned 
scholars of our day, never can be 
fulfilled. Is the Bible therefore 
untrustworthy ? We ought to re- 
member that in the great sum of 
absolute prophecy, there is much 
contingent prediction such as the 
prophecy against Nineveh which 
God pronounced through his re- 
luctant messenger, Jonah, "After 



forty days" Nineveh was not de- 
stroyed. The contingency which 
alone could divert the calamity 
arose and Nineveh was given re- 
spite. God has himself declared 
this principle in Jer. xviiiry. "At 
what instant I shall speak concern- 
ing a nation and concerning a king- 
dom, to pluck up and to pull down, 
and to destroy it ; if that nation 
against whom I have pronounced, 
turn from their evil, I will repent 
of the evil that I thought to do 
unto them." 

The prophecy whose fulfillment 
has been thus averted has neverthe- 
less served its purpose as surely as 
any of that absolute prophecy 
whose marvelous fulfillment history 
has recorded. For the minatory 
prophecy is given not that it may 
be fulfilled, but that it may not be 
fulfilled. For God having, as it 
is said in Kzekiel xxxiiini, no 
pleasure in the death of a sinner, 
but in his turning from his ways, 
the first and chief purpose of the 
prophetic announcement of the di- 
vine judgment is to lead to repent- 
ance, and hence if the repentance 
takes place, the prophecy has served 
its purpose and the judgment is 
averted. Neither was it the ex- 
clusive privilege of Israel to repent, 
but any nation which heard God's 
word could avert its calamity by 
forsaking its evil way and seeking 
pardon. In this connection the 
words of Jerome deserve careful 
consideration, "Nor does it inevit- 
ably follow, that since the prophet 
predicts, it will come to pass, be- 
cause he has predicted. For he has 
not prophesied, in order that it may 
come to pass, but lest it come to 
pass. Neither since God speaks is 
it necessary that it should follow 
because he has threatened, but he 
threatens in order that he who is 
threatened may be brought to re- 



3 



pentance, and that the evil may not 
befall which would have come had 
the words of God been despised." 
[From Jerome's comments on Ez. 
xxxiii: 1 1.] 

The first purpose of prophecy, 
therefore, is not to attest the divine 
origin of the teachings of any of 
the prophets, or of the volume of 
the book ; this use of prophecy, 
though legitimate, is incidental. 
The great underlying purpose of 
prophecy is the good of the people 
— to restrain them from a wicked 
course and its consequent destruc- 
tion. Prophecy is, therefore, the 
mercy of God going before his jus- 
tice for the salvation, not for the 
destruction of men. And God is 
better pleased when the fulfillment 
of the prophecy need not follow. 
When we look at the words of the 
prophets in this light, which I as- 
sure you is the right light, we see 
that the prophecies are not merely 
records of events to come, but they 
reveal the great underlying princi- 
ples of the Divine government, and 
are of present vital significance, 
rightly demanding our closest study 
and most prayerful observance. 

In bringing, therefore, the testi- 
mony of Prophecy to the trust- 
worthiness of the Scriptures it be- 
comes necessary to enquire whether 
the prophecy is one which should 
have been fulfilled. Then, whether 
those prophecies which have been 
fulfilled afford any indubitable evi- 
dence, that they have proceeded 
from a real fore-knowledge of what 
w r as to come to pass, or whether 
they are merely shrewd and lucky 
guesses, which men of acknow- 
ledged judgment and keen insight 
could take without a divine revela- 
tion. The Scriptures themselves 
are full of declarations, that the 
spoken or written word is the word 
of God. (See text.) Therefore, 



the whole fabric must stand or fall, 
as the matching of the event to 
the prophecy shall either prove or 
disprove this claim. 

Let us now take some of the pro- 
phecies upon special subjects, and 
notice the number of persons who 
have contributed a share to their 
completion ; the years which have 
separated the different prophets not 
only from one another, but also 
from the events of which they pro- 
phesied ; the fullness of details 
which they have given, and the im- 
probability of any such event when 
the prophecies were spoken; and 
then examining the record of his- 
tory let us ask ourselves, whether 
the event and prophecy join to 
attest the trustworthiness of the 
whole record . ' ' For when a prophet 
shall speak in the name of the 
Lord, if the thing follow not, nor 
come to pass, that is the thing 
which the Lord hath not spoken." 
Has he, or has he not spoken this 
word ? If he has spoken it, then 
it is all true, and trustworthy, and 
like God it is always right. 

The chief subject of Old Testa- 
ment prophecy is Christ. Every 
feature of Christ's life on the earth 
was foretold with astonishing accu- 
racy. ''The details scattered 
through so many prophets, yet all 
converging in him, the race, nation, 
tribe, family, birth-place, miracles, 
humiliation, death, crucifixion 
with the wicked yet association 
with the rich at death, resurrection, 
extension of his seed the church, 
are so numerous that their minute 
conformity with the subsequent 
fact can only be explained by be- 
lieving that the prophets were 
moved by the Holy Ghost to fore- 
tell the event. What is overwhelm- 
ingly convincing is, the Jews are 
our sacred librarians who attest the 
prophets as written ages before, and 



who certainly would not have cor- 
rupted them to confirm Jesus' Mes- 
sianic claims which they reject. 

1 'The details moreover are so com- 
plicated and seemingly inconsistent 
that before the event it would seem 
impossible to make them coincide 
in one person, 'a Son,' yet 'the 
everlasting Father;' 'a child,' yet 
'the mighty God;' 'the Prince of 
Peace,' 'sitting on the throne of 
David,' yet 'coming when the 
sceptre shall depart from Judah ; ' 
'David's Son,' yet 'David's Lord;' 
a 'Prophet' and a 'priest,' and yet 
also a 'King;' the one who 'upholds 
all things by the word of his power, ' 
yet the 'servant of God;' 'the judge 
of all,' yet he upon whom 'the 
Lord hath laid the iniquity of us 
all;' the 'Messiah cutoff,' yet given 
by the Ancient of Days, 'an ever- 
lasting dominion;' one 'who is dis- 
pised and rejected of men,' and 
yet coming into possession of a 
'kingdom that all people, nations, 
and languages should serve him.' 
The only key which opens this im- 
mensely complicated lock is the life 
and work of Jesus, so faithfully por- 
trayed in the Gospels, a life which 
began on the earth some four hun- 
dred years after the last of the pro- 
phets had gone to heaven." (Fau- 
sett's Bible Cyclopedia, 1892.) 

If there were not another pro- 
phecy in the Scriptures, these would 
alone establish their divine origin 
with the incontestable certainty of 
a demonstration. Their challenge 
has been before the world for 1800 
years. Ancient skeptics could not 
meet it. Before it modern infidelity 
is dumb. It cannot be met. "It 
is God's own witness to the divinity 
of his own word." (Foster.) 

But if it be objected by any one, 
that the confirmation of the pro- 
phets is found in a book especially 
written to show that these pro- 



phecies were fulfilled in one, Jesus 
of Nazareth, this cannot invalidate 
any point of the argument, unless 
it be also shown that the writers of 
these Gospels have entered into 
collusion to leave us a false record, 
unhistorical and untrustworthy. 
This has never been shown, and 
never can. Yet we are not de- 
pendent upon the New Testament 
records for evidence of the most 
complete fulfillment of the details, 
— the very minutia of many and 
diverse prophecies. 

Take now the prophecy concern- 
ing the Jews, as it is found in Deut. 
xxviii. This was spoken 1450 B. 
C. by Moses as a farewell address 
to Israel. He had led them out of 
Egypt; he had suffered for them 
and with them in the wilderness 
forty years; he had now come to 
the borders of Caanan, and had 
been told by God, that he should 
not himself pass over the river, but 
must go up into the mountain and 
die. Before departing on that last 
journey, he gathers all the people 
before him, that they may receive 
his dying charge. "All history 
furnishes nothing parallel in pathos 
and sublimity." Thus after re- 
counting God's wonderful dealings 
with them, and giving them again 
the law which was commanded for 
their observance, he warns them 
"but it shall come to pass, if thou 
wilt not hearken unto the voice of 
the Lord thy God, * * * that 
all these cursings shall come upon 
thee." See Deut. xxvii 45-53; 
62-67. 

Jeremiah, Hosea and Kzekiel 
unite to declare such calamities as 
no other people ever survived, and 
yet they say, ' 'I will make a full end 
of the nations whither I have driven 
thee; but I will not make a full end 
of thee." This is the prophecy. 
What does history say? Josephus, 



himself a Jew, gives a narrative 
of the siege of Titus in which 
Jerusalem was destroyed and the 
fulfilment of these prophecies be- 
gun. How well are these Romans 
indicated in the verses read ! A 
"people of fierce countenance," 
"eagles flying," "yoke is iron." 
They laid siege to Jerusalem. They 
destroyed its walls, and slew its 
inhabitants. Verse 28, speaks of 
"hunger," "thirst," "nakedness," 
"want of all things;" and verse 53 
says, "thou shalt eat the fruit of 
thine own body, the flesh of thy 
sons and of thy daughters * * in 
the siege and in the straitness 
where with thine enemies shall 
straiten thee." This hunger, and 
thirst and want of all things, Jose- 
phus describes, even to the eating 
of their own children. These are 
his words: "The famine began to 
extend its progress, and to devour 
the people by whole houses and 
families. The upper rooms were 
full of women and children that 
were dying by famine; and the 
lanes of the cit3 T were full of the 
dead bodies of the aged. * * * 

The children also and the young 
men wandered about the market- 
places like shadows, all swelled 
with the famine, and fell down dead 
wherever their misery seized them. 
.* * A deep silence also and a 
kind of deadly gloom, had seized 
upon the city. While yet the rob- 
beries were still more terrible than 
these miseries. For they break 
open those houses which were none 
other than the graves of dead bodies, 
and plundered them of what they 
had; and carrying off the cover- 
ings of their bodies, went out laugh- 
ing, and tried the points of their 
swords in their dead bodies; and 
in order to prove what mettle they 
were made of, they thrust some of 
those through that still lay alive 



upon the ground. * * Now of 
those that perished by famine in 
the city, the number was prodigious; 
and the miseries they underwent 
were unspeakable." Then he re- 
lates what he calls, the most hor- 
rible matter, which "has no parallel 
in all history." How a woman of 
"eminent family and of wealth" 
(compare Deut. 28:56) in her des- 
peration killed, and roasted, and 
ate the flesh of her own son, "where- 
upon," he adds, "the whole city 
was full of this horrid action." 

When at last Jerusalem was taken 
by Titus, and he examined the 
walls of the inner city, according 
to Josephus who was with him at 
the. time, Titus "expressed him- 
self after the following manner : 
1 ' We certainly have had God for our 
assistant in this war and it was no 
other than God who ejected the 
Jews out of these fortifications. 
For what could the hands of men, 
or any machines do towards over- 
throwing these towers ?" Then as 
though he intended to fulfill the 
prediction of Christ, that "not one 
stone shall be left upon another" of 
these mighty walls, it is recorded, 
"that he demolished the city en- 
tirely, and overthrew its walls." 

Of the inhabitants of the city, 
Josephus tells us that 1,100,000 
perished in the siege. Those sally- 
ing out of the city were taken and 
crucified before the walls, often as 
many as four hundred in a single 
day, in so much as that there be- 
came a scarcity ot wood for crosses. 
How terribly was the curse of those 
who cried, Away with him ! Cru- 
cify him ! Crucify him ! His blood 
be upon us and upon our children ! 
— how terribly was this impreca- 
tion visited upon them ! Many 
others were slain after the fall of 
of the city. Only 97,000 remained 
to be carried into captivity; some 



were sent as presents to the pro- 
vinces where they were slain in the 
arena, and the vast majority were 
sent by ships to work in the mines 
of Egypt, according to the pro- 
phecy. (Compare Deut. 28:68) 

Thus began the fulfillment of the 
prophecy 1800 years ago, and it is 
still being fulfilled under our very 
eyes. "They were rooted out of 
their land," as Isaiah had pre- 
dicted, "in anger, and in wrath, 
and in great indignation." "And 
the Iyord has scattered them among 
all people, from one of the earth 
even unto the other." Such a like 
calamity no other people ever sur- 
vived. Yet it is part of the promise 
that they shall be preserved for 
further sorrows and distresses in 
the lands whether they were exiled, 
[Deut. xxviii -.64-65.] and after- 
ward they shall turn to Christ, and 
come again, a great number, to the 
land of their fathers, too many for 
the land, for it shall be too narrow 
to contain them. It would require 
a resume of the history of all 
nations to show with what wonder- 
ful accuracy this prophecy has been 
fulfilled. It must suffice to say, 
that the prophecy and the history 
are one in character, in scope, and 
in issue. The Jews have been scat- 
tered throughout the whole earth ; 
yet they have remained everywhere 
a distinct race — a people without a 
country; they have been despoiled 
everywhere, yet never destroyed; 
"the most wonderful and amazing 
facts, such as never occurred among 
any other people, form the ordinary 
narrative of their history," and ful- 
fill literally the prophecies concern- 
ing them. Whoever seeks a miracle 
may here behold a "sign and a 
wonder" than which there cannot 
be a greater. And the Christian 
may from the test of fulfilled pro- 
phecy, challenge every candid man 



to acknowledge, that the minutest 
statements of this word are true, 
because it is God's word. "Heaven 
and earth shall pass away but one 
jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
pass from the law, till all be ful- 
filled." Matt. 5:18. 

The foreknowledge of God knows 
no bounds. His prophecy was not 
limited to the future of the Jews or 
the kingdom of Christ. There- 
fore, to deepen the impression, 
which doubtless has already been 
made, notice how minutely the 
prophecies which were spoken 
against some other great nations 
of antiquity have been fulfilled. 

We will examine first the 
prophecies against Babylon, or 
rather because they are so many, 
only a few of them. See Is. 
xiii:T9~22. (Compare Jeremiah 50.) 

When these prophecies were 
spoken, Babylon was the mistress 
of the world, the hammer of the 
nations. When Jeremiah spoke, 
she was just leading the people of 
God away into the Babylonian cap- 
tivity. Two hundred and fifty 
years after Isaiah, Herodotus wrote 
of Babylon upon his visit: "Its 
extent, its beauty, its magnificence, 
surpass all that has come within my 
knowledge. ' ' It included at the time 
of the visit of Herodotus 225 sq. miles 
within its walls, while London to- 
day covers only 122 sq. miles and 
New York only 41 sq. miles. Its 
walls, its hanging garden, its great 
artificial lake thirty -five feet deep 
and 160 miles in circumference, its 
broad avenues and its stately palaces 
and its great wealth, for it was 
called "the golden," made it at the 
time of the prophet "the glory of 
the Kingdoms, the city upon the 
rivers," seemingly superior to the 
decay of time, or the attack of 
enemies. Yet as early as 20 B. C. 
Strabo tells us, that "the site of 



Babylon is a vast desolation." And 
so it lias remained all through the 
centuries. Jerusalem which it 
destroyed has been rebuilt and is 
inhabited, but not so Babylon, for 
it shall "never be inhabited," says 
Isaiah. Layard writes, "The site 
of Babylon is a naked and hideous 
waste. Owls start from the scanty 
thickets, and foul jackals stalk 
through the furrows." For two 
months in the year by reason of the 
overflow of the Euphrates the site 
of Babylon is an inland sea, and 
the other ten months it is a dry and 
scorching plain. Neither Arab nor 
shepherd will pitch a tent upon its 
site even for a single night. "I 
cannot portray," says Captain Mig- 
nan in his travels, "the overpower- 
ing sensation of reverential awe 
that possessed my mind while con- 
templating the extent and magni- 
tude of ruin and desolation on 
every side." "It is impossible to 
behold the scene and not to be re- 
minded how exactly the predictions 
of Isaiah and Jeremiah have been 
fulfilled, even in the appearance 
Babylon is doomed to present: that 
she should never be inhabited; that 
the Arabian should not pitch his 
tent there; that she should become 
heaps; that her cities should be a 
desolation, a dry land and a wilder- 
ness." 

Old Moab, whose captivity God 
has promised to ' 'bring again in the 
latter days," probably for the sake 
of that sweet Moabitess, whose 
faith and love made her the grand- 
mother of King David, and the 
ancestress of Christ, — upon Moab is 
now accomplished the cry of the 
prophet, "Give wing* unto Moab, 
that it may flee and get away; for 
the cities thereof shall be desolate, 
without any to dwell therein. Moab 
is spoiled and gone out of her 
cities." Says Mr. Graham, the 



traveller, in speaking of B e t h- 
Gamul, the very city named in con- 
nection with this prophecy, "It is 
still very perfect. We walked about 
through the streets and entered 
every house, and opened the stone 
doors, and saw the rooms as if they 
had just been left; and then thought 
that we were in the dwelling place 
of a people which for 2,500 years 
had ceased to be a people; yet these 
cities of Moab. are still so perfect 
that they might be inhabited to- 
morrow." The remnant of the 
Moabites is still to be found, as the 
prophet predicted, "like doves mak- 
ing their nests in the sides of the 
mouths of the caves." They are 
ready to come again into these 
cities, when God brings them, for 
he has promised, "I will bring 
again the captivity of Moab in the 
latter days." 

But I must close, though we 
have journeyed only on the edges 
of this vast and interesting subject. 
Allow me to refer you for further 
reading to Keith's "The 
Demonstration of Christianity," 
and to Bishop Foster's "The 
Supernatural Book," where you 
may find traced the fuliillment of 
many more prophecies, no less re- 
markable than these which we have 
considered this morning, — prophe- 
cies spoken against the city of Sa- 
maria, now a garden in "the midst of 
a field;" and again Gaza, of which 
the fires, prophesied years before, 
have left here and there blackened 
marbles as the only evidences of 
her once magnificent palaces; and 
against Lebanon, "ashamed and 
hewn down;" for only four or five 
of her stately cedars remain, says 
Volney, "to challenge our admir- 
ation of its past;" and against 
Egypt, once the first kingdom of 
the earth, but as God spake by the 
mouth of Ezekiel, "she has been 



8 



wasted by the hand of the strang- 
ers," for the Persians, the Mace- 
donians, the Greeks, the Romans, 
the Arabs, and the unspeakable 
Turk, have spoiled her, until she 
is now as predicted, "the basest of 
the kingdoms." Of Tyre, and 
of Nineveh, of Edom and of Phil- 
istia, as the prophets have prophe- 
sied, so is it accomplished. God 
hath spoken, and he hath perform- 
ed it. No evidence to the absolute 
trustworthiness of the Bible is 
stronger, none so incontrovertable 
as this. Mighty empires have 
risen, and flourished, and decayed; 
dynasties has been established and 
overthrown; nations have passed 
away and others have been born; 
languages have perished with the 
peoples which spoke them; old sys- 
tems of science and philosophy have 
proved untrue, and have been sup- 



erseded; new worlds have been dis- 
covered, and new arts have been 
developed: but amid all the changes 
of the ages, God's word standeth 
unchanged and unchanging. 
Though it has portrayed with pro- 
phetic, yet unerring accuracy the 
rise and fall of nations, and of re- 
ligions, and of systems, it has it- 
self remained unaffected and un- 
shaken. But why has it thus stood ? 
There is but one answer: because it 
is God's infallible word. 

"For the prophecy came not in 
old time by the will of man: but 
holy men of old spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost." 
"Wherefore we have a more sure 
word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do 
well to take heed, as unto a light 
shining in a dark place, until the 
day dawn, and the day star arise 
in your hearts." 



Is bl>e Bitle Trustworthy Wl^r) Tested ty 
HuiT)ai) Kxpericijcc ? 

^v-v- 

BY THE REV. WILLIAM P. SWARTZ. 

••■ PKRT I^Z. ••• 



If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God." John viiiiy. 



We have already put the Bible 
to the test of absolute accuracy in 
its science, its history and its pro- 
phecy; and we have seen, that in 
every department it has evinced a 
more than human trustworthiness 
We would now apply to it the 
test of human experience. Has 
man found that its statements are 
true, or false, as he has tested it by 
this experience of his own nature 
and its needs, of his present condi- 
tion and his future possibilities ? 

Whatever it may contain of sci- 
ence, or of history, or of prophecy, 
the great reason of the Bible's 
existence, if we may take its own 
account of itself, is to reveal man 
unto himself, to show him his re- 
lation to God, and the wonderful 
possibilities of his nature in God. 
If there has been any revelation 
of or appeal to the facts of nature, 
it has been made for this purpose. 
If there is a history running 
through this book, it is that man 
ma}' better know himself, and the 
character and demands of the 
Almighty. If it has employed 
prophecy, it is for the purpose of 
turning man away from that which 



it says is evil, or of comforting and 
encouraging him in the path of right- 
eousness. The Bible is emphati- 
cally for man. 

Now it is right to expect in such 
a book, if its claims to divine au- 
thorship are true, that it will meet 
all the necessities of man's nature; 
it must be so complete as to leave 
no essential truth unrevealed; it 
must never be superseded by any 
inventions or discoveries of men; 
it must always be in advance of his 
highest attainments in civilization 
and righteousness; it must com- 
mend itself to him by such evi- 
dences of truth as would convince 
a candid mind in any other depart- 
ment of knowledge; its province 
would be to emphasize the spiritual, 
and thus indirectly to promote the 
comfort and prosperity of man in- 
tellectually and physically; from 
its teachings and spirit should de- 
velop the noblest traits of char- 
acter, a stronger faith in the Giver 
of the Revelation, more hope in 
the future of the world under his 
control, and a greater love for man, 
a broader philanthropy. The world 
would not outgrow it, but would 



forever grow by it; the highest con- 
summations would find in it their 
fountains, and it should still be the 
crown and the glory of all. 

If under the test of human ex- 
perience these things are found to 
be true, then this word has shown 
itself to be altogether trustworthy, 
to be divine. Now we assert, with- 
out fear of successful contradiction , 
that the Bible has done, and is 
doing all this and more. 

It reveals a thorough, accurate 
knowledge of man's nature and 
needs. There were no excuse for 
the Bible, if it were not to make 
man know himself and his possi- 
bilities as he could not otherwise 
know them. And it has given 
man such a conception of himself, of 
his dignity and destiny, as he had 
else never attained, — a conception 
which, when once it is gained, evi- 
dences its own truth. 

Of whatever else man may be 
supposed to be ignorant, it would 
seem that he should be expected to 
know himself. He may be ignorant 
of the sun, and moon and stars, 
holding concerning them whatever 
crude and erroneous opinions he 
pleases; he may even misread the 
times and the seasons, and remain 
in primitive ignorance of the mani- 
fold forms of life about him in air, 
and earth, and sea. "Neither can 
he be expected to appreciate the 
vast and subtle harmonies at the 
outset of his career. He cannot 
be supposed to have mastered then 
the superb mechanism, the know- 
ledge of which implies large in- 
quiry, long experiment. The 
lightning for him will not have 
learned to run on his messages. 
The needle of the compass will not 
for him have become a seer, guid- 
ing his course amid the darkness, 
and loosing his keels from the 
visible headlands, * * And the 



beautiful lights and the towering 
heights of philosophical specula- 
tion may long remain as unap- 
proachable b} T him as rainbows 
cresting inaccessible summits. But 
one might suppose that man ought 
at once to know himself, in the 
very beginning of his manhood. 
The elements of that knowledge 
are within him. The faculty of 
that knowledge can hardly be ex- 
pected to remain quiescent, until it 
is touched by some particular form 
of religious faith; but would at 
once awake to combine these ele- 
ments of force," these promises of 
power, these institutions of an 
awakened soul into a knowledge of 
what he is, and what he may be- 
come; while at the same time he 
would recognize the best method 
of achieving from this actual the 
more glorious possible. 

'Tis true that from the very be- 
ginning man did study man. He 
had inscribed over the door of his 
favorite temple in Greece the com- 
mand, "Know thyself, " long before 
the English poet wrote, ' 'The proper 
study of mankind is man. ' ' Though 
the rolls of history are brilliant 
with the names of great and learned 
men, yet their philosophies had dis- 
covered but a little of what and 
whence man is. They so little un- 
derstood man, that they had not 
learned half his dignity, or nobility 
of nature. Man received no con- 
sideration because he was a man. 
The impulse was to honor the acci- 
dents of power or station rather 
than the man. They worshipped 
the emperor as a God, but the slave, 
or soldier, or artisan was nothing 
save only as he might contribute to 
the comfort of the rich and power- 
ful, as he might add to the glory of 
the State, or increase its prosperity. 
Man, it was thought, sprang from 
swamps, or rocks, or trees, or as 



theSparti from the teeth of Dragons. 
The first men were only miserable 

animals dwelling- in the caves of 
the mountains, or excavations in 
the earth. Then what is there in 
man as man, they asked, which is 
worthy of more consideration than 
is given to beasts ? Only when 
he had power, or wealth, either 
by birth or acquisition was 
he worth}' of regard. That there 
was a future life, some hoped, as 
did vSocrates, and Cicero, and Plato; 
but Caesar, the pontifex maxims as 
well as emperor, proclaimed publicly 
in the Senate, that there was no 
future life for men. The Brahman 
anticipated a future life, but it was 
only a repetition of the life which 
he saw about him, the life of an ox, 
or goat, or some insect, or reptile. 
He hoped that some time in the 
dim future he might chance once 
again to be born a man. But this 
was not in any modern sense an im- 
mortal life. Buddhism knew no 
God. Its future promised only an 
unconscious existence, such as the 
body might have after the soul has 
departed. Of the few enlightened 
ones it speaks with deference, but 
the mass of men it compares to 
"rubbish." 

No wonder that among such 
people, though refined as were the 
Greeks, or powerful as were the 
Romans, or civilized as are the 
Hindus, women were only the ser- 
vants of man's lust, not so much 
man's companion as his slave. No 
wonder that children were exposed 
to starvation, or as a prey to cruel 
and ravenous beasts; for woman 
was not powerful, and infancy was 
helpless. 

It was to men striving thus to 
know, yet not knowing themselves, 
that the Bible came with revela- 
tions, which they have been com- 
pelled to acknowledge are true. 



It taught man the dignity and 
worth of manhood. It revealed 
the fact that he was made in the 
image of a God, whom it taught 
him to know more perfectly. He 
was not all of the swamp, or of the 
earth, but there had been breathed 
into him a living rational soul. 
And man could not deny it, for the 
soul had evidenced its existence to 
him in every thought. He is taught 
that a divine being has formed him, 
and endowed him with powers and 
faculties like its own. Just as the 
impress of Caesar's head upon the 
coin gave it a recognized worth 
throughout the world; so wherever 
the truth is accepted, that man is 
created in the image of God, it 
adds to manhood a new, dignity and 
demands for him a new respect. 

All this is enhanced by the evi- 
dent consideration which God ac- 
cords to even the lowest man, the 
meanest slave. Does it not at once 
raise man in his own esteem to 
know that he is the object of such 
divine solicitude, that he is of such 
dignity as that God stoops to com- 
mune with him, and to show him 
the divine will ? It takes heavenly 
truth and puts it to the service of 
man, because even heavenly truth 
is not too precious for his use. And 
then when he discovers that this 
revelation is given to all men, be- 
cause they are men, and not to 
those only who are kings and 
priests, to the rich and the mighty 
of the earth; when it is found that 
there is one truth for all, one hope 
for all, one destiny possible for all, 
whether peasant or king, provided 
only that he accept and trust in the 
mercy of God; then man learns that 
there is a glory in his very man- 
hood stripped of all the accidents 
of life. In this book "there is 
neither Greek nor Jew, there is 
neither bond nor free, there is 



neither male nor female, but all are 
one in Christ." And the astonish- 
ed believer is led to exclaim, "what 
is man that thou art mindful of 
him ? and the son of man, that thou 
•visitest him ? Thou hast made 
him a little lower than the angels, 
and hast crowned him with glory 
and honor." 

But this conception of man's 
worth in God's estimation is fur- 
ther materially elevated, when we 
behold Christ as God's gift for us. 
Whatever may have been thought 
of man before, since Christ has 
taken upon himself our nature, it 
has always and everywhere been 
exalted. None dare longer des- 
pise it. For He, who is all divine, 
has become in our behalf a perfect 
man, that in us might be realized 
the full possibilities of our human- 
ity. But this is not all that we are 
taught of the dignity of our own 
nature in the incarnation. We see 
Christ not only living that we may 
be blessed, but dying in greatest 
ignominy, despised and rejected by 
his foes, deserted by his friends, 
suffering the curse of the cross, the 
power of death, the confinement of 
the tomb, that he might redeem 
man from the power of sin unto 
God. Now it matters not for the 
moment whether all this be true, 
or not. I am now claiming only, 
that this is the representation of the 
Bible. In it at least God has so 
highly valued man as man, that 
all, who have been brought under 
its sway, have learned to look upon 
him as possessed of a value, such as 
they had not else dreamed. For 
there must always "be a certain 
proportion between means employed 
and the ends desired; between bene- 
fits proffered and the accredited 
worth of the recipient. Even men 
do not build costly ships to carry 
sea-sand from Sidon to Ascalon, 



and drop it into the deep; but only 
to carry wealthy fabrics, products 
of art, or treasures of looms, be- 
tween the rich commercial cities. 
Even men do not send armed co- 
horts to conquer rabbits, or to cap- 
ture mice." Therefore, if it be 
true as this book represents, that 
God sent his son into the world, to 
draw it into a new relationship to 
him by dying for it, then the im- 
measurable worth of the son of 
God, becomes the measure of the 
"greatness, in native constitution, 
in wealth of being of him for whom 
Christ came." 

It adds no little to the concep- 
tion of man's dignity, which this 
book affords, that it recognizes and 
respects the freedom of the human 
will. Man is conscious, that he 
has the power of choice. Morality 
could not exist without it. The 
general may demand obedience 
of his soldiers even at the muzzle 
of the musket; or the master may 
exact obedience of his slave under 
the crack of the lash, but this Bible 
represents God as reasoning with 
man, as one would reason with his 
equal, or with the son whom he 
loved. "Come now, and let us 
reason together. ' ' The will of man 
is free; God made it so. God him- 
self does not compel it, but appeals 
to it; he does not force it, but per- 
suades it; he does not sway it by 
might, but by reason; he does not 
conquer it by power, but by love. 
He, therefore, gave man liberty 
to choose between good and evil. 
And it is just as true, that a man's 
destiny turns upon his own elec- 
tion, as it is that it turns upon the 
eternal election of God. 

This is a high estimate to put 
upon man, simply as man. It was 
not conceived, except by these 
writers, who claim for themselves 
the inspiration of the Almighty. 



And yet is it not true ? The eye 
of the new born babe responds no 
more certainly to the light of the 
sun, nor the wing of the bird to 
he air, than does the consciousness 
of man to the truthfulness of this 
revelation of his dignity. 

I ask you to notice also that the 
Bible not only affords what men 
are constrained to acknowledge is 
the only adequate conception of 
man's native worth, but that it also 
reveals its full acquaintance with 
his constitution. It recognizes all 
the parts and faculties of his being, 
the body, the mind and the spirit, 
with all their limitations and all 
their powers, and in their true sub- 
ordination. 

Of the body it shows, that there 
is no disregard of its preservation, 
even though it be enjoined to ' 'keep 
it under. ' ' The cry of Christianity 
to those threatening to lay violent 
hands upon it is, "do thyself no 
harm." It tell us, that our "body 
is the temple of the Holy Ghost." 
When after death it is laid in the 
grave, over the open tomb its voice 
is heard saying, "It is sown a nat- 
ural body, it is raised a spiritual 
body. It is sown in corruption, it 
is raised in incorruption." "lam 
the resurrection and the life." 

It recognizes the intellect of man 
by setting before him a revelation 
which, while it is so simple that a 
child ma} 7 understand from it what is 
necessary to please God, yet does 
not shirk any of the more difficult 
problems of life, with which it may 
be called to deal. It invites man 
to "grow in knowledge." It con- 
stantly appeals to him, as to one 
who can know and understand even 
the eternal things which it claims 
to reveal. The final problem of 
knowledge, which it proposes for 
his mind, is "to know him, whom 
to know aright is life eternal," and 



it assures man, that at last he shall 
"know, even as he is known." 

It moreover makes new demands 
upon his affections, yet with the 
certainty that they are not impos- 
sible. Love for the gods had never 
been possible under ethnic religions. 
The common people could not love 
their cruel deities. Their worship 
was paid in dread; it was the trib- 
ute of fear. The philosopher could 
not love the impersonal power, un- 
embodied and infinite, which his 
reason had discerned, any more 
than a fish can love the cool breezes 
of summer, or the bird the stone 
which smote it. But this religion 
demanded of man a supreme love 
for its God, an affection "beside 
which all other affections should be 
weak, but from which they should 
take, each one, a higher purity, 
and a fresh consecration. Filial 
and fervent it was to be; persistent 
in energy, and of passionate inten- 
sity; such as could conquer pain 
and grief, outlast the years, survive 
vicissitudes, be only more mighty 
in the midst of temptations, be only 
supreme in the presence of death." 
And yet man's soul was capable of 
such a love as this, though it had 
never before been challenged or ex- 
hibited. 

Other religions and systems of 
ethics had appealed for their 
authority either to man's fears, or 
to his innate selfishness. But this 
Bible appeals to him as a moral be- 
ing, who has in himself a sense of 
right, a conscience demanding 
obedience, which men shall yield be- 
cause it is right, in spite of the 
lusts of the body, or the passions 
of the soul. Its appeal to the con- 
science, that moral power in every 
man, was made through the affec- 
tions and the intellect. It boldly 
declares God to be a spirit, and de- 
mands for him a spiritual worship. 



It presents motives and reasons to 
the conscience through the intellect 
with the assurance that the intel- 
lect in man is capable of all this. 

If now the Bible is indeed a rev- 
elation to man of his true' dignity, 
if it has shown him, more clearly 
than he ever saw it before, the con- 
stitution of that organism of which 
it was said, "it is fearfully and 
wonderfully made," it no less 
clearly presents to his awakened 
soul possibilities, nay more, as- 
surances of future privileges and 
attainments of which man had else 
caught only the faintest indication, 
or observed only the fading traces, 
as of dreams preserved in waking 
hours. But in the Bible "life and 
immortality are brought to light," 
and we may assure ourselves of 
them, as we do of the visions of the 
day. Where many had asked the 
question, "if a man die, shall he 
live again ?" it was only here, that 
the answer was given with the as- 
surance of certainty, "he that be- 
lieveth on me, though he die, yet 
shall he live." For his future it 
presents a life, not like this baser, 
earthly life which Mohammed 
promised the faithful, but one of 
communion in thought and purpose 
with Almighty God, a life in which 
the soul, not the body, is guaran- 
teed its highest enjoyments. He is 
promised through the redemption 
of Christ a participation in the 
divine nature, adoption into the 
family of God, and the ultimate at- 
tainment of true holiness. The 
command has gone forth, "Be ye 
holy, for I am holy," and to this 
holiness he is lead by all the oper- 
ations of divine grace, and all the 
dealings of Providence. 

If this were all that the Bible 
taught man, it would have failed 
to recognize one of his most con- 
spicuous difficulties, and would 



have left him impotent to achieve the 
glorious possibilities which it dis- 
played. But in the very midst of 
its revelations of man's marvelous 
endowments and opportunities, it 
raises a trumpet voice of warning 
and reproach for sin. By the great- 
ness of his nature he is to measure 
the depth of his degredation in sin. 
It holds up to his view the weak- 
ness, the bondage, the destruction 
in which he stands, until it wrings 
from him the cry of anguish, "O 
wretched man that I am ! Who 
shall deliver me from the body of 
this death ?" 

He would be a helpless and un- 
helping doctor, who though he 
could name all the muscles and 
bones, and organs of the human 
system, and though he could rightly 
diagnosis every case, if he could do 
no more, if he had no remedy, that 
could cure the disease, if he could 
give no relief to the suffering. And 
so of this book, if the Bible stopped 
here, and had no remedy for man's 
sin, no escape from its condemna- 
tion, no restoration to his primitive 
holiness, or nothing to make him 
better than it found him, then we 
should doubt whether it came from 
God. In this one thing in which 
man most needs help and a revela- 
tion from his Maker, the Ruler of 
the universe, it would disappoint 
all his expectations, and leave him 
to the bitterness of despair. 

But the Bible is not thus help- 
less. For man's sin, it shows a 
fountain opened; it invites him with 
the assurance, that "though your 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow; though they be red 
like crimson, they shall be as 
wool." Your penalty another, in 
the supreme sacrifice of love, has 
borne in your stead, and "there is 
now, therefore, no condemnation" to 
those who are in him. For the day 



of his weakness, it promises "my 
strength is made perfect in weak- 
ness. "My grace is sufficient for 
von." In the presence of tempta- 
tion, it affords a sure victory. It 
invites man to "come boldly to the 
throne of grace, that he may obtain 
mercy, and find grace to help in 
time of need." In his perplexi- 
ties; it assures him of a divine guid- 
ance: amid his sorrows it offers a 
divine comfort; in his associations 
with his fellows, it teaches princi- 
ples of mutual respect and forbear- 
ance. It proclaims "liberty through- 
out the land unto all the inhabitants 
thereof;" it exalts nations in right- 
eousness. 

But we ask, are all these wonder- 
ful teachings true ? Will they 
verify themselves in human experi- 
ence ? Do the)' meet the needs of 
man as an individual, and as a race? 
Or is' it all only a beautiful picture, 
only a rainbow 7 beauty, which may 
delight the eyes, but on which no 
man can climb up out of this sin- 
ful nature, and out of its sorrows 
into God's heaven of purity and 
love. 

The ausw T er is at hand. The 
test has been made by thousands, 
and the w r orld throbs with a new 
life under the impulse of these 
truths. To use the w r ords of another 
"it has not left the race as it found 
it. It is certain that no greater 
power ever entered the w r orld. It 
has turned and overturned ; it has 
grappled with and overthrown hoary 
superstition; it has eradicated huge 
and monstrous evils; it has ennobled 
manhood; it has elevated woman- 
hood; it has thrown its protection 
around the helplessness of child- 
hood; it has weakened the power 
of oppression; it has melted the 
chains of slavery; it has given 
sacredness to human life; it has 
imparted sanctity to marriage; it 



has created the idea of a home; it 
has begotten the feeling of human 
brotherhood; it has diffused educa- 
tion and culture; it has elaborated 
by its preaching, and its worship, 
and its Sabbaths for divine uses, 
the noblest, the broadest, the purest 
types of human excellence that 
have ever appeared upon the earth. 
It needs only to contrast Christian 
with non-Christian communities to 
discover the benignity of its influ- 
ences " 

We have not claimed too much 
for this book, our enemies them- 
selves being judges. Says the in- 
fidel Hume, in his history of Eng- 
land, in speaking of the results of 
the Saxon conquest, "they nearly 
extripated the Christian religion, 
thereby causing the country to re- 
vert to its ancient barbarity." But 
the Bible was again sent to this bar- 
baric nation, and its king, Ethel- 
bert of Kent, was a little later bap- 
tized. The introduction into Briton 
for the second time of the gospel, 
the same historian tells us, was the 
"most memorable event in this 
reign. ' ' We know what these Eng- 
lish speaking races now are, the 
foremost people of the world, in 
wealth, piety, enlightenment, and 
every right element of civilization 
and progress. The present Queen 
of Great Britain has herself sent in 
response to the question of an Afri- 
can chief for the secret of this great- 
ness a Bible With the message, 
"Thisis the secret of England's 
greatness. ' ' Darwin, who would not 
take time to consider the claims of 
God upon him, yet seeing the re- 
sults of the teaching of these truths 
in certain islands of the seas, be- 
came a regular contributor to the 
cause of foreign missions, say- 
ing, "The lesson of the missionary 
is that of the enchanter's wand." 
While Carlyle asserted with vehem- 



ence, "good never came from aught 
else." 

Such testimony millions of peo- 
ple are ready to give to-day; other 
millions have lived in every age, 
who have experienced its truth, 
and who have testified, that in the 
Bible every need of man's spiritual 
nature is met; that all its promises 
are true; that its blessings give full 
content and joy; they have de- 
clared this, though the body was in 
nakedness and want, though it was 
racked with pains; they have con- 
fessed it in the arena, where they 
were placed to contend with 
wild beasts, because of their faith; 
and they have not denied it in the 
presence of fiercer man, by whom 
they were given to the rack, or 
brought to the martyr's stake. Is 
not their testimony true ? Have 
they not experienced that of which 
they spake ? Who are these peo- 
ple ? They are the purest and the 
best. Their testimony would be 
taken in any court of equity as 
final. They come from all stations 
in life, and from all ages, and na- 
tions, and climes; they are men 
and women, whose faith has made 



the world brighter and better, and 
whose philanthropies have fallen 
upon the despised and the wretched 
as mercies from heaven. 

With one voice, however, they 
ascribe it all to this book. They 
have made the experiment, and 
they say, that it is even as God's 
word declares. 

But this is not all. The Bible 
invites you to make the experiment, 
and to know from your own experi- 
ences, whether these things are so 
or not. "Oh taste and see that the 
Iyord is good." "If any man will 
do his will, he shall know of the 
doctrine whether it be of God." It 
challenges the test; it invites you 
to prove its truth; yea, it entreats 
your acceptance, and assures Jyou, 
that just as you enter more and 
more fully into the life which it re- 
veals, will you know, — for ye shall 
have the witness within yourselves 
— that in everything this Book is 
God's word, and worthy of all ac- 
ceptation . 

Will you make the experiment ? 
"He that doeth his will, shall know 
of the doctrine whether it be of 
God." 



Ti>e Effect of Moclerr) CribicisiT) upop bt>e Tru°;b- 
worbl)ir)ess of bt>e Biblp. 



BY THE REV. WILLIAM P. SWARTZ. 



PHRT ^Z. 



(< Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good.' 
i Thess. v:2i. 



To criticise is to judge. Criticism, as a 
department of literature, is the science by 
which knowledge is tested as to its form, 
its truthfulness, its sufficiency. Its laws 
are the laws of probation. Its tendency 
and its purpose, when honest, are to 
separate the true from the false, that the 
true may be held and the false discarded. 
It is, as it were, the auditing of the ac- 
counts to see whether the books have 
been kept correctly, and whether their 
showing is trustworthy. It is the prov- 
ing of the problem by such means as 
have been established for verifying the 
results of calculations. It tests the 
coin, which men are asked to receive in 
the commerce of thought, and deter- 
mines whether it be gold or only a cheap 
alloy. 

Honest criticism is, therefore, not 
merely permissible, it is demanded. 
"Prove all things; hold fast that which 
is good." In the renaissance of learn- 
ing, when the awakening mind was con- 
fronted with great masses of tradition, 
of philosophy, of history so called, and 
of dogma, demanding acceptance and 
obedience, it began to ask, what of all 
this is truth, and what is error ? The 
spirit of the unchained Bible was work- 
ing in the liberated minds of the people, 
testing, reconstructing, and advancing 
all knowledge. The world had passed 
beyond the credulity of its childhood, 
when a legend was accepted as of equal 
authority, and, perhaps, of greater in- 
terest than history itself. It began, with 
the soberness of manhood, to demand 
such evidence for its acceptance and 



faith, as the false could not give, but the 
true could readily furnish. It began to 
' 'prove all things. ' ' Under this scrutiny, 
much science was displaced by truer 
learning; much history was shown to be 
myth; and ancient philosophies ceased 
to be received as authority, and were 
studied chiefly as an indication of the 
attainments of the age in which they 
were produced. Nothing was accepted 
merely on the ground of venerable age, 
nothing on the strength of tradition 
only. The results of this sifting pro- 
cess have been very helpful to true ad- 
vancement. 

It is impossible that the Bible, which 
was more influential than any other 
book in inducing this spirit, should 
escape the scrutiny, which it demanded 
for everything else, and which it invited 
for itself. Some Christians in every age 
have manifested alarm for the safety of 
the Bible, and even of Christianity; and 
they have, therefore, sought to prevent 
the fullest criticism of its claims: they 
have shrunk for it from the knife and 
the glass. But the Bible itself has sub- 
mitted fearlessly to the test, demanding 
of its critics only fair handling, and a 
readiness on their part to see and to 
acknowledge the truth. 

It is foreign to the purpose of this 
paper to review the attacks of infidelity 
upon the cardinal doctrines of the word; 
such as the incarnation of Christ, the 
third person of the adorable Trinity; 
salvation through his perfect life and 
atoning death; a revelation to men in 
his life and word of the way back to 



God and holiness; the eternity of its 
rewards and its punishments. These 
facts have not ceased to be assailed, it is 
true, but they have so frequently been 
vindicated, that it is only the wilfully 
ignorant, or the spiritually blind who 
any longer assail them. But there is a 
criticism, which, beginning at the time 
of the Reformation, has continued in 
varying forms, and with different objects 
in view to question the authority of the 
Bible, the correctness of its text, and 
the integrity and authenticity of its 
books. In short, it has taken up all the 
questions which present themselves con- 
cerning the Bible as literature, and 
which are preparatory to the use of the 
Bible for instruction and doctrine. 

Let us examine briefly the scope and 
spirit of Modern Criticism, and its re- 
sults as affecting the trustworthiness of 
the Bible. 

There is, perhaps, nothing so com- 
monly talked about, and of which peo- 
ple usually have so vague and confused 
ideas, as this one of Modern Biblical 
Criticism, especially of that department 
called the Higher Criticism. 

There is placed in the hands of the 
critic a book, or rather a collection of 
books, commonly called the Bible; he 
is met with the assertion of the church, 
that this book is the Word of God, that 
it contains a literature different in its 
origin and purpose from all other litera- 
ture; that it is not like the sacred books 
of any other religion, because they are 
human productions, but this, though 
written by men, was written by them 
only as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost. The critic opens the book 
itself, and finds in a thousand places, 
and in many ways this claim repeated. 
Then arises the questions, "How shall I 
know that this claim is true ? Why 
should these books, and none others, be 
included in this volume ? What author- 
ity is there in the books themselves, or 
in history to support this claim ? 

i. These questions give rise to the first 
department of Biblical criticism, which 
is commonly called, the Criticism of the 
Canon, or Biblical Canonics. 

The first answer given to the Re- 
formers by the ecclesiastics was, "These 
are the Holy Scriptures, because the 
church says that they are." But Luther 
in his controversy with Bck said, "The 
church cannot give any more authority 
or power than it has of itself. A coun- 
cil cannot make that to be of scripture 
which is not by nature of scripture." 
Calvin says, "But there has very gener- 



ally prevailed a mostg pernicious error, 
that the scriptures have only so much 
weight as is conceded to them by the 
church, as though the eternal and inviol- 
able truth of God depended on the arbi- 
trary will of men." 

If the authority of the church could 
not in the days of the Reformation give 
canonicity to the books of the Bible, 
neither could it in any other age subse- 
quent to the apostles; and there is no 
good evidence that the apostles ever did 
collect a canon of scripture. If these 
books had been accepted upon the 
decree of a council in any age, they 
would rest for their authority upon 
human judgment. This can certainly 
have no more acceptance with thinking 
minds, when it frames a canon of scrip- 
ture, than when it frames any doctrine 
or dogma, as that of the papal infalli- 
bility, or penance, or of the mass. 

How may I then know, that any writ- 
ing is or is not of God's revealed word ? 
The answer of Calvin and of all the Re- 
formers with him w T as, "For, as God 
alone is a sufficient witness of himself 
in his own Word, so also the Word will 
never gain credit in the hearts of men, 
till it is confirmed by the internal testi- 
mony of the Spirit. It is necessary, 
therefore, that the same Spirit, who 
spake by the mouths of the prophets, 
should penetrate into our hearts, to con- 
vince us that they faithfully delivered 
the oracles which were divinely entrusted 
to them." The great test, therefore, 
of the divinity of any writing is the 
Holy Spirit in it evidencing its inspira- 
tion. The testimony of Christians in 
all past ages was not rejected as worth- 
less, nor the voice of the church as of 
no confirming power; but it was rightly 
demanded, that if any writing is of 
divine authority, it must manifest that 
authority to the heart and mind of the 
devout reader now as well as in the past. 
"The evangelical test of canonicity and 
inspiration of the Scriptures was, God 
Himself speaking in and through them 
to His people. This alone gave the fides 
divina. This was the so-called formal 
principle of the Reformation." 

Now this test was applied to each book 
for which the Roman Catholic church 
demanded acceptance, and as a result the 
apocryphal books were rejected from the 
canon. Did the position of the critic in 
the Reformation weaken the truth, or im- 
pair the hold which it had upon the 
world? It made the canon narrower, but 
it strengthened the power of that which 
was left. Says one of the most pro- 



nounced of our modern evangelical 
workers in the field of Biblical criticism, 
"We believe that the canon of Scriptures 
established by the Reformed symbols 
can be successfully vindicated on Prot- 
estant critical principles. We believe, 
that the church has not been deceived 
with regard to its inspiration." 

No man is, therefore, called upon to 
receive this book as God's word, because 
the church says that it is, or because of 
its antiquity only, but because all 
through the ages, to multitudes of 
prayerful readers, and to multitudes in 
this age it is evidencing its divinity by 
the power of its truth, and the accom- 
panying work of the Holy Ghost in 
man; and because it will prove itself to 
you, if you will put it to the test. But 
what has been the effect of this position 
upon the trustworthiness of the word ? 
It has removed its claim for acceptance 
from a false to a true foundation, where 
it can much better evidence its unfail- 
ing trustworthiness. 

2. But when once the canonicity and 
authority of the books were established, 
critics asked, have we the text as it 
was written ? In seeking the answer 
they gathered the different manuscripts 
and versions, ransacking every library 
in cathedral, and university, and monas- 
tery. These manuscripts were then 
carefully examined to discover which 
was the oldest, for it would probably be 
the nearest to the original as it left the 
hand of its human author. Then every 
manuscript, which could be found, was 
compared with it, verse by verse, word 
by word, letter by letter, until every 
variation in the reading of all the manu- 
scripts was noted and catalogued. After 
that each different reading was taken up, 
and by the weight of evidence for or 
against it, it was accepted or rejected. 
At last one text resulted, or practically 
one, under the hand of different critics, 
working with all the material that they 
could find, in different countries, and by 
independent judgment. It is from this 
text that our revised version of the Bible 
has been translated. This department of 
criticism is called the Textual, or Lower 
Criticism. 

At first infidels made much of the 
great number of different readings 
which had been found, 150,000 in the 
New Testament. They asserted, that 
whatever might be claimed for the Bible 
as it was first composed, it must be 
allowed, that the Bible which exists is 
neither infallible, nor inspired; for be- 
hold, say they, how it differs in one 



manuscript from another. But the 
analysis of the critics speedily dispelled 
the alarm. For of these readings per- 
haps nineteen-twentieths are of no 
authority, no one can suppose them to 
be genuine. Of the remainder nineteen- 
twentieths do not in the least affect the 
sense; and of the rest, not one of them 
touches any doctrine which the church 
has commonly taught. Dr. Scrivener, 
the author of what competent judges 
pronounce the best work in the English 
language on the Criticism of the Text of 
the New Testament, quotes from Bently, 
whom he calls "at once the profoundest 
and the most daring of English critics," 
the following emphatic testimony: 
"Make your variations as many more, 
and put them into the hands of a knave 
or a fool, and yet with the most sinister 
and absurd choice, he shall not extin- 
guish the light of any one chapter, nor 
so disguise Christianity, but that every 
feature of it shall still be the same." 
"Thus," adds Dr. Scrivener, "hath God's 
providence kept from harm the treasure 
of his written Word, so far as is needful 
for the quiet assurance of His Church 
and people." To quote Dr. Briggs, 
"Such criticism has accomplished great 
things for the New Testament text. It 
will do even more for the Old Testa- 
ment. * * * [Criticism] disturbs the 
inspiration of versions, the inspiration 
of the Massoretic text, the inspiration 
of particular letters, syllables, and ex- 
ternal words and expressions; and truly 
all those who rest on these external 
things ought to be disturbed and driven 
from the letter to the spirit, from cling- 
ing to the outer wall, to see him who is 
the sum and the substance, the Master 
and the King of the Scriptures." [Bibli- 
cal Study p. 162.] In all this scholars 
were merely applying to the Bible, with 
infinite advantage to the faith of Chris- 
tendom, its own injunction, "Prove all 
things; hold fast that which is good." 
3. Now the Bible had to pass to the 
test of a third form of criticism. For 
having determined that these books are 
God's inspired word, that they are 
canonical, and having recovered what 
must be very approximately the original 
text, there remained other tasks to de- 
mand the critic's skill, and patience, — 
tasks more difficult than either of those 
which he had successfully accomplished. 
Taking the text as thus secured, criti- 
cism must next consider it as literature, 
upon the same principles upon which 
other literature is examined. It asks 
concerning its authorship, its integrity, 



its authenticity, and the circumstances 
as far as they can be learned under 
which it was produced. These are im- 
portant questions, and help, as they are 
answered, to a better understanding of 
the sacred word. This is the Higher 
Criticism, in contradistinction to the 
criticism of the text, which is called the 
Lower Criticism. Now the Higher Criti- 
cism employs all facts, which it is able 
to gather from history, but it relies 
chiefly upon the evidence gathered from 
the writings themselves for the answer 
which it seeks. It examines as with a 
microscope the language of each part of 
the different books, noticing the style, 
the use or the neglect of certain dis- 
tinctive forms of expression; it care- 
fully notes all archaeological refer- 
ences; it considers the historical allu- 
sions; and then it ascends to the 
thoughts of the author respecting the 
various branches of human knowledge 
and seeks the circumstances out of 
which they issue. 

One of its chief maxims, as indeed a 
maxim of all criticism is, that nothing 
can be relied upon as really known, 
until it has been tested and found reli- 
able by criticism. It is evident, there- 
fore, that criticism itself needs the cor- 
rection of criticism. It must again and 
again correct its processes and verify 
its results. It is well, therefore, to 
accept the results of criticism slowly, 
allowing ample time for the repeated 
verification to be made. In the mean 
time do not be alarmed at its announce- 
ments, man}' of which have already 
yielded and others will still yield 
to further criticism. For if as 
many errors had been found in the 
Bible as have been demonstrated to 
exist in the results of criticism, of the 
Bible, it would be hard to maintain its 
authority as God's word. But criticism 
is man's best attempt to obey the com- 
mand, "Prove all things; hold fast that 
which is good," and while he has had to 
acknowledge many mistakes, he has still 
brought to the surface with the dirt 
many rich gems of truth. 

On this field of Higher Criticism there 
are entered three classes of workers. 
First are the scholastic critics, who 
have taken up the work to show that the 
traditional views taught in the schools 
are true. Next are the rationalistic 
often called the negative critics, 
whose purpose is to show that the Bible 
and hence Christianity, is only an evo- 
lution of human progress, requiring no 
divine interposition and giving no evi- 



dence of any. Of this school were 
Welhausen and Kennen, and Strauss, 
and Robertson Smith. As a third class 
there are Christian men who have felt 
the power of God in his word. These 
simply seek the truth concerning this 
word, assured that though it may over- 
throw accepted views, it will only pro- 
mote the £lory of God, and make it 
easier for men to defend the truth, and 
to discern the power of God's working 
among the nations in all ages. 

Even as the discovery of the truth, 
now so firmly established, that our 
system is not earth-centered but 
sun-centered, has shown a greater 
power and wisdom in that Creator, 
and promoted his glory as the 
light of truth has flashed from furthest 
stars upon the wondering worshiper. 
The only ones injured by truth are those 
scientists and ecclesiastics, who lived 
like spiders in the tangled web of error 
spun from their own inner-conscious- 
ness. When these cob-webs of error 
were swept away to let in the light of 
God's truth, of course the spiders were 
in alarm as though all were destroyed. 
But afterward it is lighter. 

The Higher criticism is, therefore, a 
great system of warfare, in which the 
same weapons may be used, according 
to the same canons of criticism, but 
with which there is being fought out on 
the field of the Bible the old warfare 
between the true and the false, between 
faith and infidelity. We are of course 
interested in the contest, but are not 
doubtful of the result, for God's word 
is truth, and it will prevail. 

Already a number of battles of this 
warfare have been fought, and in every 
instance the rationalistic critics have 
been vanquished. Shall we not there- 
fore, glory in these triumphs ? Of 
the results of the battle in the age of 
the Reformation, let me quote the words 
of Dr. Draper in his Intellectual De- 
velopment of Europe, a work which has 
never been charged with partiality 
toward the Bible. He says: "If criti- 
cism, thus standing on the basis of the 
Holy Scriptures, had not hesitated to 
apply itself to an examination of the 
public faith, and as a consequence 
thereof had laid down new rules for 
morality and the guidance of life, it was 
not to be expected, that it would hesi- 
tate to deal with minor things, that it 
would spare the philosophy, the policy, 
the literature of antiquity. And so, 
indeed, it went on, comparing classical 
authors with classical authors, the fathers 



with the fathers, often the same writer 
with himself. Contradictions were 
pointed out, errors exposed, weaknesses 
detected, and new views offered of 
almost everything in the range of litera- j 
ture. From this burning ordeal one ' 
book alone came out unscathed. It was | 
the Bible. It spontaneously vindicated 
for itself, what YYiclif in the former 
times, and Luther more lately, had 
claimed for it. And not only did it j 
hold its ground, but it truly became in- 
calculably more powerful than ever it 
had been before." [Draper's Intellec- 
tual Development of Europe, vol. n, p. ! 
224.] 

The battle for the historical character 
and date of the Gospels has been fought 
out, and the negative critics have been 
put to flight. In the second paper of 
this series reference was made to the 
mythical theory of Strauss, and to the 
support which it received from the ; 
Tuebingen school of critics, with Bauer 
at their head, in claiming that the Gos- 
pels were not histories, but the late 
records of myths which had arisen in j 
the first and second centuries concern- 
ing Jesus. None of the Gospels, it was | 
asserted, were written in the Apostolic 
age, but in the second century; and j 
especially of the Gospel of John was it j 
true, that it could not have been written 
until the second half of the second cen- • 
tury, A. D. 160 to 170. The Evangelical ; 
party of the higher critics began to j 
search the literature of antiquity for its 
testimony to the age of this Gospel, j 
The Clementine Homilies, written about 
the time which Bauer said was the j 
earliest date for the Gospel of John con- ! 
tained, this critic claimed no reference to 
this Gospel nor quotation from it. But 1 
only a part of these Homilies was extant. , 
In 1853 a German scholar found a com- i 
plete copy of the Homilies in the orig- 
inal, and published it. Now the com- 
plete Homilies contain undeniable quo- 
tations from the Gospel of John, which 
these critics said, had not yet been writ- 
ten. But they had to acknowledge their 
error, though not yet willing to accord 
the Gospel apostolic origin, or authen- 
ticity. But another witness was soon to 
be called against them. It had long been 
known that Tatian the Syrian, who died 
somewhere about 150 or 170 A. D. had 
written a work called the Diatesseron, 
supposed to be a harmony of the four 
Gospels. But the rationalistic critics 
said, "There is no authority for saying 
that Tatian 's Gospel is a harmony of the 
four Gospels at all." "No one seems to 



have seen the Tatian 's Harmony for the 
very good reason that there was no such 
work." And again, "It is obvious that 
there is no evidence whatever connect- 
ing Tatian 's Gospel with those of our 
canon." [See Supernatural Religion, 
Vol. 11, p. 152 ff.] But the Diatesseron 
has been found. And is one Gospel made 
by weaving the accepted texts of the 
four canonical Gospels into one, using 
the text of John as the basis. This was 
a most disastrous blow to the ration- 
alists, for it shows that in the time of 
Tatian and of his Master, Justin Martyr, 
[A. D. 103 to A. D. 169,] all the Gospels 
were not only in existence, but had ob- 
tained recognition and acceptance. One 
more witness was to overwhelm and 
rout those who were thus already seek- 
ing a safe way for retreat. In the work 
of Hypollitus, the Refutation of all 
Heresies, the author in dealing with the 
Heresy of Basilides, who flourished 
about 125 A. D., quotes a passage from 
Basilides as follows: "And this," he, 
[BasilidesJ, says, "is that which has been 
stated in the Gospels: "He was the true 
light which lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world. " So it had to be 
acknowledged that before the year 125 
A. D. the Gospels, and particularly the 
Gospel of John were both written and 
generally accepted as of authority. 

Thus was the battle fought out con- 
cerning each of the Gospels by the 
higher critics, and there is now no doubt 
that the Gcspels were all written in the 
time of the Apostles. Bauer assigned 
dates for the composition of these four 
Gospels which aggregated 605 years; but 
if the dates assigned by the last of the 
rationalistic critics of this school be 
added they make only 348 years. So the 
retreat on the ages of the four Gospels 
has been about 250 years. 

Dr. Briggs says in his Biblical Study: 
"There has nothing been established by 
modern critical work, that will at all 
disturb the statements of the symbols 
of the Reformation with reference to 
the authority of the word of God." 

On the other hand we may note some 
additional gratifying achievements of 
the Higher Criticism. 

"The higher criticism has been com- 
pelled by -nationalists and deists to 
meet the question of the forgery of the 
biblical writings. This phase of the 
subject has now been settled so far that 
no reputable critics venture to write of 
any of our canonical writings as for- 
geries." [Briggs Biblical Study, p. 222.] 

We have not troubled ourselves to 



mention the questions which are not yet 
settled, — such as the Mosaic Authorship 
of the Penteteuch, or the integrity of 
Isaiah, or the dates of the historical 
books. Concerning these questions 
final results have not yet been obtained. 
When once the divine authorship is 
established for any writing by the test 
which the Reformers proposed, and 
upon which all of our canon rests, and. 
must rest; it matters not so much who 
wrote any particular part of the word, 
it is still God's word. When I recog- 
nize the signature of God, can I be 
shaken in my trust of his revelation, if 
it be found that another pen than that 
which I had supposed was employed by 
him in giving me this message ? Rest 
assured, that the word which has success- 
fully stood so many tests, and has vindi- 
cated its right to be called the Word of 
God, will never be found contradicting 
the truth. 

In summing up, therefore, the results 
of the Higher Criticism upon the trust- 
worthiness of the Bible, I cannot do 
better than to quote again the words of 
Dr. Briggs: "The higher criticism has 
already strengthened the credibility of 
the Scriptures. It has studied the 
human features of the Bible, and learned 
the wondrous variety of form and color 
assumed by the divine revelation. Many 
of the supposed inconsistencies have 
been found to be different modes of re- 
presenting the same thing, comple- 
mentary to one another and combining 
to give a fuller representation than any 
one mode ever could have given; as the 
two sides of the stereoscopic view give 
a representation superior to that of the 
ordinary photograph. Many of the 
supposed inconsistencies have been 
found to arise from different stages 
of the divine revelation, in the earlier 
of which God condescended to the ignor- 
ance and weakness of men, and gave to 
them the knowledge which they could 
appropriate, and held up to them ideals 
which they could understand as to their 
essence if not in all their details. The 
earlier are shadows and types, crude 
and imperfect representations of better 
things to follow. Many of the supposed 
inconsistencies resulted from the popu- 
lar and unscientific language of the 
Bible, thus approaching the people of 
God in different ages in concrete forms 
and avoiding the abstract. Many of the 
inconsistencies have resulted from the 
scholastic abstractions of those who 
would use the Bible as a text book, but 
thev do not exist in the concrete of the 



Bible itself. Many of the supposed in- 
consistencies arise from a different 
method of logic and rhetoric in the 
Oriental writers, and the attempt of 
modern scholars to measure them by 
Occidental methods. Many of the in- 
consistencies result from the neglect to 
appreciate the poetic and imaginative 
element in the Bible and a lack of 
aesthetic sense on the part of its inter- 
preters. The higher criticism has 
already removed a large number of 
these difficulties, and will remove many 
more as it becomes a more common 
study among scholars." These are the 
words of Dr. Briggs, one of the critics. 

We have now answered the question 
before us and with grateful hearts 
we may acknowledge, and accept 
this precious book, from which we have 
received so many lessons for this life, 
from which we have found so much com- 
fort in the hours of our bereavement, 
which has given so much of divine grace 
in the time of trial, which has done so 
much to better our own life and to en- 
lighten and bless the world — we may 
rest upon this book as the Word of God, 
eternal truth. For it has stood the test 
of harmony with the latest reading of 
God's other book, the volume of nature, 
and it is the only book of antiquity 
which has stood this test. It has often 
been challenged and contradicted by 
historians, but it has always maintained 
its correctness, and they have been 
proved in error. It has been assailed 
upon the ground of its unfulfilled 
prophecy, but the critical study of the 
prophecies has more than any other 
thing declared the books divine. And 
again it has demonstrated its divinity in 
the experience of multitudes, who have 
"done God's will," and have thus learned 
that the word is His. And now we have 
seen that all the attacks of its enemies 
have but served to enhance its authority 
and to increase its power that in no 
single point has its trustworthiness been 
weakened by the results of criticism. 
No book has ever been so critieised. and 
none has proved itself of like quality; 
for all others have been shown to be 
only man's work, but this is the work of 
God. 

As this book is then so firmly proven 
to be God's revelation to you, take it as 
the authority of your life, trust it im- 
plicitly, submit to it in all things, and it 
will sanctify you, and keep you for that 
greater glory which is still to be revealed, 
when He who is the Living Word shall 
appear. 



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